Strategic environmental assessment for the Brazilian hydroelectric planning sector

Abstract

The practice of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), institutionalized in many countries since the 1990s, has expanded, while in Brazil the experience is limited. The Brazilian electricity sector has a strong dependence on hydroelectric projects and its planning is direct to the Amazon region where the majority of these initiatives are located and has a historical environmental liabilities associated with them. Two impact assessment instruments - Integrated Environmental Assessment and Environmental Impact Assessment - are usually applied in the national hydroelectric planning however these allow limited approach if compared to that provide by the SEA. The objective of this research is to discuss contributions and to propose guidelines for the integration of SEA in the framework of environmental governance for planning of the hydroelectric sector in Brazil. This exploratory research is subsidized by bibliographic and documentary survey, case studies and research diagnosis. In the context of national hydropower planning this research aims at (i) assessing the scope and limitations of impact assessment tools; (ii) evaluating the current practice of SEA applied to Brazilian energy cases compared to international best practice; (iii) expanding the knowledge about the practices of SEA; (iv) presenting an overview of the benefits of SEA for the framework of environmental governance; (v) identifying tiering in environmental governance; (vi) increasing the number of scientific publications; and (vii) contributing with technical evidence for a potential change in the paradigm of environmental planning practices with regarding to environmental governance and planning of hydroelectric energy in the Brazilian context. (AU)