Multi-criteria evaluation in strategic environmental assessment for waste management plan, a case study: The city of Belgrade

- The paper deals with the specific method of multi-criteria evaluation applied in drafting the SEA for the Belgrade WMP.
- MCE of the planning solutions, assessed according to 37 objectives of the SEA and four sets of criteria, was presented in the matrix form.
- The results are presented in the form of graphs so as to be easily comprehensible to all the participants in the decision-making process.
- The results represent concrete contribution proven in practice.

Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is one of the key instruments for implementing sustainable development strategies in planning in general; in addition to being used in sectoral planning, it can also be used in other areas such as waste management planning. SEA in waste management planning has become a tool for considering the benefits and consequences of the proposed changes in space, also taking into account the capacity of space to sustain the implementation of the planned activities. In order to envisage both the positive and negative implications of a waste management plan for the elements of sustainable development, an adequate methodological approach to evaluating the potential impacts must be adopted and the evaluation results presented in a simple and clear way, so as to allow planners to make relevant decisions as a precondition for the sustainability of the activities planned in the waste management sector. This paper examines the multi-criteria evaluation method for carrying out an SEA for the Waste Management Plan for the city of Belgrade (BWMP). The method was applied to the evaluation of the impacts of the activities planned in the waste management sector on the basis of the environmental and socioeconomic indicators of sustainability, taking into consideration the intensity, spatial extent, probability and frequency of impact, by means of a specific planning approach and simple and clear presentation of the obtained results.