بسط چارچوب ارزيابي راهبردي محيط زيستي طرح‌هاي توسعه شهري بر اساس تفكر تاب‌آوري

Developing a Framework for Strategic Environmental Assessment of Urban Development Plans Based on the Principles of Resilience Thinking

ارزيابي راهبردي محيط زيستي به‌عنوان ابزاري براي در نظر گرفتن ملاحظات محيط زيستي در مراحل اوليه تصميم‌گيري است. با توجه به مرور منابع و بررسي تجارب كشورهايي كه در برنامه‌ريزي‌هاي خود از فرآيند ارزيابي راهبردي محيط زيستي بهره مي‌گيرند، مشخص شد كه چارچوب‌هايي كه تاكنون به‌كار گرفته شده از كارآيي لازم براي تحليل سيستم‌هاي پيچيده اجتماعي اكولوژيكي به‌ويژه شهرها برخوردار نيست. از اين‌رو ضرورت دارد از رويكردهاي نوين مانند تفكر تاب‌آوري و اكولوژي شهري در ارزيابي راهبردي محيط زيستي جهت برآورد اهداف توسعه پايدار و كاهش عدم قطعيت استفاده شود. از اين‌رو در قالب يك مطالعه تطبيقي، منابع موجود در زمينه تفكر تاب‌آوري، اكولوژي شهري مدرن و كاربرد آن‌ها در فرآيند ارزيابي راهبردي محيط زيستي گردآوري شد و مورد تجزيه و تحليل قرار گرفت و بر اين اساس يك چارچوب سه مرحله‌اي پيشنهاد داده گرديد. در مرحله اول اين چارچوب، تاب‌آوري عمومي بستر محيط زيست شهري به‌صورت كلي از طريق معيارهاي سنجش تاب‌آوري عمومي ارزيابي مي‌شود. مرحله دوم سنجش تاب‌آوري بستر نسبت به طرح توسعه پيشنهادي است و مرحله سوم عبارت است از بسط مديريت تطبيقي براي فراهم آوردن سيستمي انعطاف‌پذير جهت مشاركت افراد ذي‌نفع و ذي‌نفوذ و نيز پايش اثرات.

Strategic environmental assessment is a tool for considering environmental issues in the early stages of decision-making. Three distinct characteristics of a strategic environmental assessment include being strategic in nature, being integrated in the process of decision-making and planning context, and enabling the realization of the three objectives of sustainable development. The main objective of this study is to develop a strategic environmental assessment framework based on the theories and principles of resilience thinking as the procedural part of the framework and using the principles of new urban ecology approach to inform the content of strategic environmental assessment framework of urban development plans. Using the resilience approach in the process of strategic environmental assessment has been recently proposed as an effective measure to realize the objectives of sustainable development and to minimize uncertainties concerning the probable impacts of development policies. Resilience is the ability of systems to maintain desirable ecosystem services and to deal with environmental changes and human exploitation. Resilience thinking provides insights of unpredictable future, inevitability of changes and vulnerability of systems to be considered through multiple scales concept and to pick out the appropriate spatial and temporal scale. The content of the proposed framework is largely based on New Urban Ecology approach. Transformation in ecological paradigm created fundamental changes in urban ecology studies. In the new approach as new urban ecology, the city is being considered as one of the most crucial open and dynamic systems under the influence of human decisions and activities at different temporal and spatial scales. The proposed framework is largely based on the two basic principles of New Urban Ecology approach i.e. relationship between structure and functions in urban environment and the application of resilience thinking in sustainable urban development. These two principles can be recognized in conceptual model developed by Alberti and Marzluff (2004). Using the model of Alberti and Marzluff (2004), we can find the interactions between driving forces, structures, functions and impacts in urban environments. Finally based on this model, we can define and analyze the urban context. The model is used for the stages of strategic environmental assessment framework of urban development plans that was developed in this research. The proposed framework is composed of three main steps. The first step is to evaluate general resilience of the urban environment setting which is in line with the screening stage in an ordinary strategic environmental assessment procedure. This stage aims at understanding vulnerabilities and resilience of the urban settings to disturbances. In general, resilience assessment system is considered as a whole. The whole system is evaluated based on several criteria. The second stage is to conduct an assessment of the urban resilience for the proposed urban development policies, plans or programs through a series of consecutive sub-stages including context setting, identification of objectives and assessment criteria, impact assessment and proposals for impact mitigation. Finally, the third stage is to develop an adaptive management system in order to support systematic engagement of public and stakeholders and to monitoring the adverse effects. The proposed framework is expected to be further moderated and validated through its application in different case studies.