Aidenvironment attended the annual International Association on Impact Assessment Conference, held in Puebla, Mexico from 28 May to 4 June 2011. The topic of this year’s conference was "Impact Assessment and Responsible Development’. Wlbert van Rooij of Aidenvironment chaired the session “Modelling biodiversity strengthens SEA and land use planning” and presented a paper on how biodiversity models can help SEA practitioners and land use planners who want—but do not know how —to incorporate biodiversity objectives in their land use plans.
The session gave a good overview of different aspects and levels of modelling: From an advanced internet application including detailed data storage at SANBI in South Africa to basic data limitations for assessments in Ireland and from detailed habitat models at municipality level in Sweden, regional species modelling in Korea to the more generic pressure modelling at national level. It was concluded that each model provided valuable information for impact assessments and that the selection of the appropriate model depended on the implementation scale of the Impact Assessment and data availability.

For more information contact Wilbert van Rooij.