Edward Bellinger (CEU, University of Manchester, UK)

Norman Lee (University of Manchester, UK)

Paul Tomlison (Transport Research Laboratory, UK)

Andreas Kaefer (TRAFICO, Austria)

Urszula Rzeszot (Polish Environmental Institute, Poland)

 

Mr. Jiri Dusik of the Regional Environmental Center (REC) for Central and Easter Europe is the manager of the Sofia Initiative for EIA, one of the largest international programmes on strengthening EIA capacity of Central and Eastern European countries. Mr. Dusik has significant practical experience in conducting Strategic Environmental Assessment of structural funds and other major activities. He represents the Czech Republic at the negotiations of the Strategic Environmental Assessment Protocol to the Espoo Convention on EIA in a Transboundary Context.

Dr. Edward Bellinger is a professor of CEU and the University of Manchester, UK. For a number of years he directed the M.Sc. course in Environmental and Pollution Control in Manchester and was the Head of the Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy at CEU. Dr. Bellinger is a member of the Department of the Environment Standing Committee of Analysts (UK Government Committee); Editorial Panel for the Journal Institution of Water and Environment Management. He is author of numerous courses, including distance learning courses delivered in Kazakhstan, Siberia, Mongolia and elsewhere on ecology, water pollution, waste water treatment and environmental standards.

Dr. Norman Lee is a Senior Research Fellow of the EIA Centre, School of Planning, University of Manchester and Senior Research Fellow of the Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester. He formerly worked as a Co-Director of the EIA Centre, Senior Lecturer in Economics and Director of the Pollution Research Unit of the University of Manchester. Dr Lee has been engaged in the evaluation of environmental policies and management practices as well as in EIA practice, training and research since the early 1970s both at a national and international level, particularly within Europe but also, more recently in relation to developing countries. He has been involved as project-director, manager or adviser on individual EIA studies for a wide range of different projects. He has also been involved in reviewing the quality of EISs produced by, and the overall effectiveness of EIA practices of, a number of organisations including National Power, London Transport and a major, international environmental consultancy. Additionally, Dr Lee has acted as an adviser on EIA on the Commission of the European Communities for many years, providing technical advice on a wide range of EIA policy and other initiatives. He has also advised a number of other international organisations on environmental policy and EIA matters including OECD and ECE/UNEP. He has also advised different national and regional administrations on the implementation of their EIA regulations, including the Norwegian Ministry of Environment and the Brussels Region Environmental Administration. In June 2000 Dr Lee was the recipient of the Rose Hulman Award of the International Association of Impact Assessment for his international contribution to impact assessment over the previous three decades.

Mr. Paul Tomlison is the Head of the Environmental Assessment & Policy Division of the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL Ltd.), UK, one of the major research groups on transportation issues. Mr. Tomlison has a background in public, private and academic sectors and 20 years experience in environmental assessment, town and country planning, environmental policy and management. He is currently advising the UK Department of Environment, Transport and Regions and the Highway Agency on the preparation of a Guidance Manual on SEA for Multi-Modal Studies in order to prepare for the recently adopted EU SEA Directive. He is also advising the UK Environment Agency on Integrated Assessment and English Nature on transportation issues. In the past, Mr. Tomlison provided expert assistance to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development for EIAs of transportation projects in the CIS and worked for PHARE investigating environmental and institutional constraints for TEN in Lithuania as well as providing training in Slovenia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, India and China.

Mr. Andreas Kaefer is a managing director of TRAFICO Verkehrsplanung which is a professional private company dealing with practical issues of transport planning and EIA of transport projects. Mr. Kaeffer was involved in some of the first EIAs of transport projects in Austria. He has participated in implementing TACIS and PHARE transport, EIA and SEA projects in Albania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine. Additionally he worked on various assignments in Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia and FYROM. Mr. Kaefer also works for the secretariat of the Transport Infrastructure Needs Assessment (TINA) in Central and Eastern Europe.

Dr. Urszula Rzeszot is a senior environmental consultant for WS Atkins Polska and a researcher with the Polish Environmental Institute. She has a Ph.D. in environmental engineering and has been involved in a number of EIA studies in Poland including an EIA of A-2 motorway in Konin and Warsaw provinces. Dr. Rzeszot co-authored the draft version of the list of developments to be submitted to EIA procedure in Poland and also represented Poland in the work of the UN ECE Task Force on Legal and Administrative Aspects of the Practical Application of Relevant Provisions of the Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context. In addition, she teaches environmental engineering in Warsaw Technical University.

The course covers environmental aspects of regional transport planning, primarily focusing on recent developments in a dynamic new field of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). SEA is an interactive process to incorporate environmental consideration into preparation and implementation of policies and other strategic activities. The recently adopted SEA Directive of the European Union and the International SEA Protocol to the Espoo Convention, likely to be signed in 2003, highlight the relevance of SEA to transitional countries.

The course aims to strengthen the knowledge of and practical skills in SEA, especially in relation to transportation activities, through

The course will be organised jointly with the REC (Regional Environmental Centre) secretariat of the Sofia Initiative, a major inter-governmental effort on strengthening capacity for Environmental Assessment in Eastern Europe.

The course is designed primarily for those already familiar through their academic or professional career with Environmental Impact Assessment of strategic or project-level activities. Participants with background in environmental studies interested in environmental implications of transportation and transport planning are also welcome. The course will seek to offer an advanced, in-depth analysis of using SEA as a planning and policy-making tool for transport activities. The course will equally benefit SEA and EIA officials and professionals, university teachers and researchers in the related fields.

The course will be a combination of distance learning (DL) and face-to-face activities.

The pre-course DL phase will run from May until July 2002. During this phase the participants will study the essentials of SEA, especially in relation to regional transport planning. They will receive a special introductory reader on SEA and background information on regional transport planning including a case study. They will be asked to complete one assignment on identification of environmentally significant activities and key impacts of the case-study. They will also be presented with a possibility to access additional materials on the Internet and to participate in an on-line forum.

The summer course itself will take place in Budapest in July 2002. This will include an intensive teaching component covering on different SEA elements (legal requirements, procedural arrangements, etc.) and techniques (scenario analysis, GIS, ecological impact assessment, etc.) The participants will also be familiarised with environmental impacts of transportation activities and the ways to mitigate these. A field trip to observe social, environmental and other impacts of different elements of transport infrastructure (motorways, railroads) and the effectiveness of mitigation measures will also be included in this phase. The lectures will be supplemented by group discussions focused on real-life cases of regional transport planning such as TINA (Transport Infrastructure Needs Assessment) for CEE. The preliminary outline of topics covered in the course is given below.