Project Description

Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) of Rayong Province Development Master Plan & Revision of Thai Draft SEA guidelines

Host agency: Thai National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC) | Donor: Asian Development Bank | Duration: February – July 2019 | Location: Rayong province, Thailand

About: The Thai Subcommittee on Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), under the National Committee on Sustainable Development, made recommendations to the Thai Government and prepared draft guidelines to promote the systematic use of the SEA as part of planning for major developments within Thailand. The SEA Subcommittee proposed that an SEA be conducted to test and pilot the guidelines.

The pilot SEA was conducted with support from the National Economic and Social Development Council and the Asian Development Bank.  It built on work completed under the ADB Strengthening Integrated Water Resources Management and Planning at River Basin Level Project, and aims to demonstrate SEA as a key strategic planning tool in complex regional and coastal development contexts.  It  will inform the review and completion of the draft national SEA guidelines.

The pilot SEA focused on the Rayong Province Development Master Plan and followed four main stages:

Objective: To demonstrate SEA as a key strategic planning tool for sustainable development.

Key outputs:

  • Baseline assessment of past trends and the current status of economic activities, demographics, and social and environmental issues, including documentation of past extreme natural events such as flooding, droughts, landslides, coastal erosion and subsistence and an analysis of climate change projections and anticipated future hotspots.
  • Impact assessment that explores the implications of (i) a business as usual (BAU) development scenario under the current Rayong Provincial Development Master Plan, and (ii) a sustainable development trajectory.
  • Mitigation options developed based on findings in the baseline and impact assessments, and preparation of a sustainable development framework (SDF) which balances economic development and protection of key environmental and social functions and values.
  • Lessons learned workshop and SEA training modules which capture the pilot SEA experience as an input to the Thai National Subcommittee’s SEA guidelines and provide concrete materials for training Thai nationals to conduct SEAs and integrate results into planning processes.

 

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