Development and practices of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) in China

The paper introduces the research and practices of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) in China, including the definition of plan environmental impact assessment (PEIA), its political and legal basis, mode for combining SEA into integration of environment and development in decision-making (IEDD). Then, an operational procedure and methods used for SEA in China, and particularly the enforcement framework of SEA, i.e. subject of implementation, object of SEA, elements and scope, analysing the correlation of different implemented subjects and their responsibility, are discussed. Nine practical case studies are exemplified in this paper, and finally some proposals are given.