Lecturer: Roberto De Lotto  

Course name: Urban planning and strategic environmental assessment
Course code: 501023
Degree course: Ingegneria Edile-Architettura
Disciplinary field of science: ICAR/20
University credits: CFU 9
Course website: n.d.

Specific course objectives

The course aims to make the student gain the theoretical, methodological, operative tools to apply the procedure of Strategic Environmental Valuation to urban design and planning, as enunciated by the EU Directive 2001/42/CE and by the following national and regional laws and regulations, and also aims to provide the disciplinary and normative knowing pattern about environmental sustainability applied to territorial and urban transformation/management.

Course programme

There are three main parts of the course: in the first part the application area of the Strategic Environmental Valuation is defined with relation to the disciplinary, normative and cultural context; afterwards the procedure of Strategic Environmental Valuation is described; the third part of the course deepens the specific operative tools used in SEA.

Application area of the Strategic Environmental Assessment
In this first part of the course the application area of the Strategic Environmental Valuation is defined with relation to the disciplinary, normative and cultural context, concerning the application of the sustainability principle to plans, programs and projects that can have significant consequences on environment, and concerning also the definition of the sustainability standards themselves in the passage from the planning step to the designing and executive one. Moreover the role of SEV is defined, in relation to other procedures of local or general environmental valuation (Environmental Impact Valuation, Environmental Accounting, Agenda 21, Reports about Environmental Being). The involved territorial aspects are deepened also in relation with the contemporary tools of territorial management and with the Thematic Maps’ use.

Editing procedures of the Strategic Environmental Assessment
In course’s second part the Strategic Environmental Valuation is described, meant as part of the dynamic system of works’ planning-valuating. Its aim is specified as verify of the correspondence of plans and projects to sustainable development’s purposes broadly speaking, considering actual environmental bonds and direct works’ incidence on environmental, social and economic quality. At the beginning, the two main steps are defined: the analytical step, referring to the main territorial and urban systems (Environmental, Settling, Infrastructural), and the planning step, through the description of areas and procedures of specific plans and projects’ application. Then the executive method is explained and valuation procedures sections are specified (Valuation during orientation and settling step, Valuation during processing and editing step, Valuation during consultation and adoption/ratification step, Valuation during realization and management step). Finally, the method of “Environmental Report” editing is explained.

Specific executive tools used in Strategic Environmental Assessment
Course’s third part deepens specific executive tools used in SEV as: description and use of System Markers, methods and models for the alternative scenes’ creation, methods and models for the projects’ Valuation.

Course entry requirements

Knowledge resulting from Urban Planning course.

Course structure and teaching

Lectures (hours/year in lecture theatre): 60
Practical class (hours/year in lecture theatre): 30
Practicals / Workshops (hours/year in lecture theatre): 0

Suggested reading materials

R. De Lotto. Cultural and methodological issues about environmental and landscape assessment. Maggioli Editore. in “Shapes and identity of Landscape” di Bugatti A., Maggioli Editore, Santarcangelo di Romagna (RN), aprile 2008 - ISBN: 978-88387-4256-9, pp. 43-65.

R. De Lotto. Assessment of development and regeneration urban projects: cultural and operational implications in metropolization context. NAUN - International Journal of Energy and Environment. available: http://www.naun.org/journals/energyenvironment.

A. Bugatti, R. De Lotto, R. Dell'Osso.. Abitare il paesaggio. Maggioli Editore, Santarcangelo di Romagna, 2008.

http://www.interreg-enplan.org/.

http://www.ocs.polito.it/ .

http://www.ec.europa.eu/environment/eia/ . .

http://ambiente.formez.it/vas.html.

http://www2.minambiente.it/sito/settori_azione/via/vas/vas_indice.asp .

Testing and exams