Institutional Design for Strategic Environmental Assessment on Urban Economic and Social Development Planning in China

The National Economic and Social Development Plans (NESDPs) of cities in China, given their comprehensive, integrated and strategic nature, have significant and profound impacts on the development of cities and their embedded ecological environments. Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEAs) on city NESDPs have the potential to improve environmental policy integration at strategic level and to safeguard the sustainable development of cities. However, these plans are normally exempted from the current SEA requirement in China. We argue that it is more feasible to apply SEAs on city NESDPs before SEAs are expanded to higher level NESDPs in China. This article attempts to propose a China-specific institutional design for SEAs on city NESDPs based on experiments in selected cities and within the current legal framework. To obtain a holistic view about the long-term development of cities, more qualitative and descriptive analysis-based assessment methods should be adopted to broaden participation, to encourage the exchange of information and to reach consensus.

► National Economic and Social Development Plans for Cities (NESDPs) in China is a very popular and significant decision made by municipal government.
► We propose a institutional framework to conduct strategic environmental assessment to NESDPs.
► The key features of the institutional framework are the independent SEA approval committee and a professional consulting agency.