Andreea Raluca SLAVE, University of Bucharest, Faculty of Geography, Romania
Ioan Cristian IOJA, University of Bucharest, Faculty of Geography, Romania
Constantina Alina HOSSU, University of Bucharest, Faculty of Geography, Romania
The COVID-19 pandemic has yielded major changes in relation with the collaborative processes that are taking place for environmental issues. There are concerns that the management of the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) as collaborative procedures have been more difficult during the pandemic period. Therefore, the aim of our study is to understand what challenges the public consultation processes within SEA and EIA procedures have experienced. A web-based survey was sent to 41 Environmental Protection Agencies (EPAs) in Romania, given their role as SEA and EIA environmental authorities. The survey included questions aimed to identify (i) the changes in public involvement in consultation processes, in terms of methods used and types of stakeholders involved and (ii) the challenges that the EPAs have experienced in terms of SEA and EIA procedures during the pandemic. Our results show that, the digital platforms were among the most frequently used methods for both informing and engaging the public in the consultation processes. The digital interactive involvement has been noted to be more effective during the pandemic period compared to previous times when traditional methods of public information and engagement (i.e., written press, public hearings) were used. Regarding the types of involved stakeholders, compared to the pre-pandemic period, a more active involvement of citizens and public institutions has been highlighted, while the involvement of academia was rare. Furthermore, the challenges that EPAs faced during the COVID-19 pandemic were related to a lack of training and equipment for digital communication tools. Our study helps to identify the difficulties that the SEA and EIA procedures have experienced during the COVID-19 period, which is important information for planners and policy makers to take transformative actions towards creating a resilient collaborative process even in a pandemic.
Mots clés : covid-19|public consultation|SEA|EIA|Romania
A104288AS