Planning theories and environmental impact assessment

The limited and sporadic interaction between EIA and planning theory has meant that EIA has largely failed to benefit from planning theory insights and lessons. Obstacles and dilemmas already encountered and addressed in planning theory are still hampering EIA theory building and practice. An overview of the characteristics, strengths, and limitations of five major planning theories—rationalism, pragmatism, socio-ecological idealism (SEI), political-economic mobilization (PEM), and communications and collaboration (CC) is presented in an effort to ameliorate this problem. EIA parallels to each planning theory and lessons for EIA are identified. Also addressed are the application of planning theories to different context types, overlaps, interconnections and middle ground concepts among theories, the integration of values, ethics, and postmodern perspectives and the potential to construct composite theories.