Environmental Assessment in Port Areas: Values, Approaches, Experiences

In decision-making processes concerning the sustainable planning and design of port areas, evaluation assumes ever greater importance, acting as a construction tool of choice, of making explicit values, interests and needs, and exploration of the components of decision process itself. It is an “implicit tool”, able to integrate approaches, methodologies and models adaptive to the many needs that the decision process reveals. The new sustainability challenges necessitate new approaches to develop a framework of analysis and evaluation of plans and projects that allow integrating the multidimensional goals and values in decision-making processes. It is therefore necessary to develop an assessment framework that is not exclusively focused on the analysis of environmental or socio-economic consequences of various options, but considering the nature of the issues involved, identifying the priorities and values that influence the decision-making process. The interdependence of values, levels, roles and methods can be regarded as an interpretative and evaluative key, useful for expressing a cognitive and reflective approach. It show the need to rely on regulatory and operative approaches, but also “explorative”, able to communicate the different categories and open to plurality, consistent with the “integrated assessments” principles. In particular, the integration of techniques such as Multi-Criteria Analysis and Geographic Information Systems can also be particularly useful in dealing with major conflicts, where the role of local actors, relationships and goals are considered part of the structuring information process within a spatial and dynamic evaluation model. These pathways are consistent with an “integrated approach” required by legislation (European, national, regional), which can be a relapse in both operational/professional terms and in scientific research, developing methodologies and tools to support new areas of application in the evaluation field, as in the cases of the Strategic Environmental Assessment, Environmental Impact assessment, and Evaluation of Landscape Compatibility. The paper intends to explore, through some selected case-studies, how environmental assessment can be a tool for dialog and interaction among different expertise, able to support learning processes, knowledge management and the creation of shared choices, using suitable approaches and tools, with specific attention to port areas. In this view, the proposal of the Integrated Spatial Assessment (ISA) approach can be useful to support decision-making processes at different scale and levels, able to stimulate dialog between technical and political evaluations, referring to complex values that are part of conflicting and changing realities, where it is necessary to operate according to the principles of sustainability.