Doha: Qatar has emerged as a promising hub for waste management as the country has adopted innovative, sustainable practices to achieve the strategic goals of developing a circular economy.
Addressing the ‘3rd Recycling Towards Sustainability Conference & Exhibition’ organised by Ministry of Municipality, Eng. Mohamed Hossameldin Farag, and expert and engineer at the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, shed light on waste management through strategic environmental assessment (SEA) and shared his successful experiences in the field of waste management in the region.
He discussed SEA regulatory framework in Qatar; key environment aspects considered in SEA and the importance of SEA for waste management.
“Strategic environmental assessment is a systematic and comprehensive process for evaluating the potential environmental impacts of proposed policies, plans, programmes and strategies. The primary goal of an SEA study is to promote sustainable development by ensuring that all environmental considerations are integrated into decision-making processes through identifying and addressing the potential environmental risks and opportunities, and to ensure that their actions are consistent with the principles of sustainable development,” he said.
Eng. Farag said environment protection law number 30 of 2002 provides the need for all entities to take into account environmental considerations, integrates these considerations in all stages and levels of planning, and makes environmental planning an integral part of development plans, strategies and policies.
Eng. Farag explained that the key environmental aspects considered in SEA include biodiversity and ecosystems, land use, waste management and pollution, air quality, soil quality, water quality, climate change, natural resources, human health, and social and economic impacts. Depending on the type of strategy and policy being assessed, one of these components could be the major part of the SEA.
Speaking about the importance of waste management to conduct the SEA, he pointed out that firstly, it will help in improving decision making because it will provide all necessary information to take the right decision and proceed with strategy or to modify it.
Secondly, It will identify all possible opportunities, for example, to increase recycling rates, or implement different methodology regarding the landfills. It is also important to be integrated with other policies within the country to achieve the vision or mission of the country and will help in accountability or transparency for the decision making.
Regarding waste management assessment methodologies in SEA, Eng. Farag said assessment of waste management can apply both qualitative assessment which involves identifying and describing potential environmental impacts of waste management practices without assigning numerical values and quantitative assessment which involves assigning numerical values to potential environmental impacts of waste management practices.
“It is very important to conduct this type of environmental assessment while conducting any national strategy or policy in the country and this will have great impact when the policy is being implemented and the level moves from the national level to the project level,” he said.
“Any potential impacts that can be identified earlier in this stage will be very helpful when the projects are initiated or established after implementing the strategy,” he added.
