The Sustainable territorial environmental/economic management approach to manage global policy impacts and effects

At this time, the impact assessment is the better process for structuring and supporting the development of global/local environmental policies. It identifies territorial/spatial problems and objectives by several ex ante and ex post steps; and main political/programming scenarios and project options measuring impacts on the economic, environmental, cultural and social fields. It outlines advantages and disadvantages of each option and examines possible synergies and trade-offs on the base of the real territorial context. In Global context, Impact Assessment (IA) is an aid to political decision, not its substitute. It informs decision-makers on the impacts of proposals, calculating relative effects, but it leaves them up to make their decisions. My contribution (chapter) will analyse and discuss this approach and how it really aims at carrying on a cohesive territorial sustainable development. Of course, IA requires countries and regions agreements of sustainability as a permanent political stance, and as a principle goal and as an orientation for local/global (regional/national/trans-national) competitiveness. .In particular, the chapter will develop IA and its planning different types of application (TIA, SEA, EIA) by a specific methodological scientific approach called STeMa (M. Prezioso). It summarises the whole procedure for introducing a territorial sustainable dimension into global vision environment and political strategies finalised to give solutions to Climate Change, public health, economic and territorial planning, etc. Therefore, faced with regional disparities, the chapter proposes a review of the sustainable policy in order to adapt it to current needs and international directives. To achieve knowledge of real current needs is possible through the Territorial Impact Assessment because it both helps to identify problems faced by policies (considering financial perspectives, too) and to assess coherence of proposed reforms (European Parliament, 2005) with regard to current and future challenges (European Parliament, 2007). Now, therefore, the study of Territorial Impact Assessment (TIA) – paying attention to regional levels, to the analysis of policy impacts on multifunctional land uses and to the socio-economic activity - considers territorial systems and functionalities in a cohesion perspective. For this reason, some experimental methods as STeMA include participatory approach, too and take into account stakeholder perspectives by governance. The analysis of policy impacts on the economic activity will be done by some coaxial matrices including effects of policy choices. This part can be achieved by the control and the knowledge of impact values produced by the effects of policies, programmes, projects on territorial (economic + social + natural + physical) indicators, using correlation matrices to assess the degree of risk of overtaking the carrying capacity threshold and the improvement in performance and competitiveness. Some following scientific hypotheses will be developed in this chapter: 1) In order to obtain the integration of different tools (TIA, SEA, EIA) objectives, it is necessary to work within a systemic vision (Von Bertanlaffy General Theory, 1969; Saaty analytical hierarchy process, 1980 and analytical planning, 1985), pursuing its application into economic-territorial analysis and planning choices (Prezioso, 2003 and 2007); 2) Economy, territory and environment will be considered as a system. Such systems can be considered typical and representative characters of a region (according to the most recent international geographical literature) and in this vision they can be studied in order to provide a territorial vision of the application of the trans-scale Impact Assessment strategy; 3) The carrying capacity of the economic/territorial/environmental systems is the basis for regions (large areas) and states (spatial systems) to be “competitive in sustainability” (see Glossary). This concept is to be distinguished from that of “sustainable competitiveness” which is commonly intended only in economic terms; 4) The Environmental Impact and Strategic Environmental Assessment (EIA, Dir. CEE/1985/337 and SEA, Dir. CE/2001/42) are the logical common standard procedures to evaluate the territorial carrying capacity in a modern and comprehensive vision (the start-up to be competitive in sustainability); 5) The GIS is the best instrument to manage the complexity of the knowledge in a territorial system and the single processes that drive them and their carrying capacity (to be competitive within the sustainability threshold). In order to obtain a territorial sustainable vision of development, The the chapter will standardise the Sustainable Territorial Environmental Management Approach – SteMA by logical passages (steps), so that it can be applied at the national (macro), regional (meso) and sub-regional (micro) scales (from the policy scopes, to territorial master plans). In order to make this procedure smoother and user-friendly, the chapter will useful to list clearly some axioms that explain because this is the better approach to analyse the global “sustainability” perspective. Below, they are briefly recalled: • Sustainable question is a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary, therefore it requires support from a number of disciplines and a knowledge that is larger than that of traditional studies about competitiveness and sustainability; • It needs to ‘work’ according to a systemic-qualitative and quantitative logic, and in a perspective of ‘total quality management’; • It needs integrates competences, knowledge and languages by using the tools of complex knowledge; • It needs strict adherence to both the objective of sustainability and territorial ‘bottom-up’ development; • it allows for continuous adaptation and the up-dating of data. In order to plan an assessment of the capability to measure the sustainability of choices and their effects, the chapter will suggest: - to fix and to share a common lexicon (common language-glossary); - to define modalities of the acquisition certified data at national, regional and sub-regional levels; - to establish a list of indicators and the territorialisation procedure of statistical data; - to set the general architecture to apply the systemic method, fixing the contents and procedures to express the ex ante judgement; - to define the contents of the territorial policies applied to planning; - to design the TIA starting from a SEA experience and inserted it in the architecture of the information and management system, to express the ex post judgement through a dedicated GIS project. The comparison of regional backgrounds will be included. The selection of indicators and determinants is based on criteria and parameters assigned in order to calculate their functionality towards the objectives of a project. The chapter will outline the logical procedure of the information and judgements. The choice of the policy alternative is drawn to policy makers’ attention through logical and deductive criteria, using systems that describe the considerations made on the various problems that determined the choice at regional level. Regarding the subject of the generation of effects and policy alternatives, the operational procedure, embodied through a GIS, enables the policy makers to choose the desired objectives of their own Strategy. Therefore this approach is able to optimise and highlight the various alternatives that can be proposed depending on the problems related to regional structure. The application of this procedure will imply the realisation of an appropriate GIS in order to collect, process, manage and communicate the information, starting from the acquisition of data