This paper presents results of a project, funded by the British Academy, on perceptions of SEA effectiveness in two countries with formal SEA requirements, but with very different planning and decision-making traditions: the UK and China. Similarities and differences are described, based on a...

This paper advocates a modification of the impact-based approach to strategic environmental assessment (SEA) which seems unable to address institutional weaknesses in most conventional SEA cases in China. It identifies a possible alternative approach, i.e. an impact-centred SEA with...