Construction of Plan Environmental Impact Assessment System in China

Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is a frontier subject in the field of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), which means the environmental assessment process for strategic actions: policies, plans or programs (PPPs). At present, Plan Environmental Impact Assessment (PEIA), the plan level of SEA, is legally required in China and the government has published a recommended technical guideline for it. This paper introduces the progress of PEIA in China and summarizes three developing phases and introduces their characteristics. According to Environmental Impact Assessment Law of the People's Republic of China (EIALPRC), the article describes the current PEIA system in China, mainly focusing on assessor, assessment targets, assessment requirements, assessment contents, assessment methods and working procedure of PEIA etc. Finally, some recommendations are proposed by the authors in order to improve PEIA in China as follows: conforming to the principle of "intervening in early stage", achieving synchronous EIA of all plans; implementing classification management on PEIA according to the degree of environmental impacts of plans; and enhancing efficiency of alternative schemes in the process of planning.