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Environmental impact assessment (EIA) of projects and strategic environmental assessment (SEA) of policies, plans and programmes allow environmental aspects to be incorporated into decision-making. The literature and regulations sometimes present SEA and EIA as isolated silos, but in practice there are intermediate approaches. This paper discusses a number of case studies where the application of EIA and SEA is conceptually unclear, although legally appropriate. The application of SEA or EIA depends in practice on the name of the planning document used, rather than its strategic character, with non-strategic SEAs and strategic EIAs due to a mismatch between planning and EA. The gradual transition between SEA and EIA makes it advisable to establish similar administrative procedures, as well as a common screening stage to determine not only whether or not the proposal should be subject to EA, but also the most appropriate approach. More than one EA process may be necessary throughout the planning cycle, requiring effective tiering. The regulations should define what is considered strategic, and regulate the tiering between SEA and EIA processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout 2020, according to the Spanish Ministry of Home Office, 23,023 irregular migrants reached the coasts of the Canary Islands in Spain, 757% more than the previous year. The migrants left from the coasts of West Africa, mainly from Senegal, trying to reach the nearest European Union (EU) territory. Apart from the migrants who arrived in the Canary Islands, nearly 1,500 stayed on the way, and 594 of them died drowned or of dehydration. Behind this migratory tragedy, there is a combination of factors, with three essential ones operating synergistically: climate change, which is affecting agriculture, fishing and exacerbating coastal erosion; overfishing, which is depleting regional fisheries; and the COVID-19 pandemic, which, in addition to the victims caused, has left the region without tourism, and with an economy in recession. This paper reviews these causal factors, highlighting his influence on migration and the responsibility of migrants receiving countries – especially those in the EU – for the causes of migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Connectivity is essential to ensure vegetation conservation and adaptation to climate change. Human actions produce a progressive fragmentation of the vegetation, affecting its quality and persistence. Adequate consideration of this effect in environmental assessment is necessary, but is often lacking; project impacts are frequently considered negligible, despite being cumulative. The aim of this review is to analyse the literature on fragmentation and loss of ecological connectivity in vegetation, to identify the main impacts and how to mitigate them. A novelty is the linking of these impacts to the human actions that generate them, which facilitates their consideration in the environmental assessment. Vegetation clearing results in fragmentation, separating patches whose persistence will depend on their size, shape or isolation. Reduced flow also causes loss of connectivity between rivers and floodplains. Fragmentation and induced connectivity favour the entry of invasive plants. These effects become more significant when threatened species or habitats are affected. Mitigation measures need to be implemented to avoid, minimise, restore and compensate for these impacts; ecological corridors can combine all these types of measures. Monitoring is essential to assess the dynamics of restored areas, and to detect changes in vegetation or the entry of invasive species. Only proper consideration of these impacts in decision-making, and appropriate mitigation, can control the negative cumulative effects that are currently occurring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mediterranean ecosystems have a high diversity of plants, especially in mountain areas; this diversity is especially high in the eastern sector of the Spanish Central Range, where Mediterranean and Eurosiberian species contact. Parts of these plants have been favoured by human activities throughout the last millennia, in an intentional or unintentional way. We have studied the composition of the flora of a valley in the Spanish Central Range to determine the human influence. Although it is a mountainous area, where the presence of synanthropic species should be lower than in territories with a strong human impact, we have identified a minimum of 20.7% of the plants favoured by human action, including alien (6.2%) and strict ruderals (14.5%), which may increase to 39.2% including plants growing both in ruderal and non-ruderal habitats. The entrance of ruderal and alien plants continues currently, especially through roadsides, and probably increases in the future, due to growing tourism and to climate change, which may influence the patterns of colonization and invasion of ruderal and alien plants, and the response of the native flora. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forest fires contribute to climate change mainly due to emission of greenhouse gases by biomass burning and loss of sequestration by sink destruction. The average contribution in Spain between 1998 and 2015 was 9,494,910 Mg CO2 eq per year, 23.8% from biomass burning and 76.2% from loss of carbon sequestration, the latter three times higher than the former, although the emissions from combustion are usually the only accounted. Regarding to the vegetation burned, 43.6% of emissions come from forest (17.7% conifers, 4.8% hardwoods and 21.1% Eucalyptus), 53.7% from scrublands and 2.7% from grasslands. The loss of sequestration is 6.6% in the fire year and by 93.4% in previous years. Scrubland burning produces a greater amount of emissions than forests, but forest regeneration is slower, with greater influence on the loss of sequestration. It is essential a forest management focused on increase fire resilience and adaptation to climate change, increase the effectiveness of extinction works to reduce fire damages and implement actions to recover the burnt vegetation, because the loss of sinks is a critical aspect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Roads contribute to climate change, mainly due to traffic emissions, but they are also affected by changes in the climate. Climate variations modify pavements' exposure in a positive or negative way, reducing or increasing degradation. When climate impacts are negative, it is necessary to apply adaptation measures, such as changes in design or maintenance frequency, or traffic management. These adaptation measures may have new environmental impacts, especially an increased use of energy and emissions or acoustic impacts, which require mitigation measures. The environmental impacts of climate change adaptation are currently mostly ignored or undervalued. The aim of this paper is to draw attention to this topic, in order to achieve a proper consideration in adaptation decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change requires major mitigation efforts, mainly emission reduction. Carbon sequestration and avoided deforestation are complementary mitigation strategies that can promote nature conservation and local development but may also have undesirable impacts. We reviewed 246 articles citing impacts, risks, or concerns from carbon projects, and 78 others related to this topic. Most of the impacts cited focus on biodiversity, especially in afforestation projects, and on social effects related to avoided deforestation projects. Concerns were raised about project effectiveness, the permanence of carbon stored, and leakage. Recommendations include accounting for uncertainty, assessing both mitigation and contribution to climate change, defining permanence, creating contingency plans, promoting local projects, proposing alternative livelihoods, ensuring a fair distribution of benefits, combining timber production and carbon sequestration, ensuring sustainable development and minimizing leakage. A holistic approach that combines carbon sequestration, nature conservation, and poverty alleviation must be applied. The potential occurrence of negative impacts does not invalidate carbon projects but makes it advisable to conduct proper environmental impact assessments, considering direct and indirect impacts, minimizing the negative effects while maximizing the positive ones, and weighing the trade-offs between them to guide decision-making. Public participation and transparency are essential. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2024;00:1-27. © 2024 SETAC., (© 2024 SETAC.)