Bridging the gap between strategic environmental assessment and planning: a geodesign perspective

Current planning practices in Europe are affected by new regulations aiming at environmental protection and risk reduction, however, planning professionals often face difficulties in properly implementing the principles given by the norms. This paper discusses the influence of the introduction of Strategic Environmental Assessment and of Spatial Data Infrastructures in the EU, highlighting innovation potential and implementation shortcomings and pitfalls. To address these issues, the Geodesign approach is proposed, firstly analysing its relationships with the current planning regulations at the regional level in Italy, and then its opportunities for application in practice with regard to the Sardinian case study (Italy); secondly an integrated Planning Support System is proposed and tested to implement the core phases of the Geodesign approach. The paper concludes suggesting that Geodesign may fruitfully address some of the major issues in the current planning and SEA practice, taking full advantage of the newly available resources of SDI.