Behovsbedömning av detaljplaner i Östergötlands kommuner.

Sammanfattning: In Sweden, detailed development plans (DDPs) go through a screening process to decide whether their implementation could cause significant environmental impact or not. The criteria in the legislation were studied to see if an environmental impact assessment was needed. This study also investigated 26 DDPs from 12 out of 13 of the municipalities in Östergötland and how they meet up to the demands in relevant legislation, for example the rules for Environmental Impact Assessments. Plans that concerned suburban communities and new housing were selected. The environmental issues highlighted in the plan documents were compared to selected topics from the GIS data base 'Östgötakartan' to see if the assessments made by the municipalities were reasonable judged. The results showed that in 54% of the municipalities, the screening processes corresponded with the Environmental Impact Assessment criteria. The most common flaws were that neither the national environmental goals nor the motivation of the decision was given any significant attention. The results of the questions that were sent to the municipalities showed that the working procedures vary among the municipalities. 73% of the municipalities used checklists as a basis for their assessments, whereas the rest worked in workgroups. Further the results indicated that there was a correlation between screening processes which had large flaws, according to the legislation criteria, and the lack of a county ecologist. In Sweden there is no real monitoring of how the legislation is implanted in the screening processes in different municipalities, which means that the processes can have flaws.