Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is a tool for assessing environmental impacts of Policy, Plans and Programmes (PPPs). In view of the water resources planning in Brazil, this paper aimed to evaluate the contributions of the SEA for the development of Watershed Management Plans in the country, having as object the Pardoâ€(tm)s River Basin, in state of Sao Paulo. To this end, we carried out interviews with staff of the Committee and followed the Working Group of the Status Report of Water Resources. It was found that the application of SEA allowed the incorporation of the environmental sustainability principles in the development of Plans, the integration with other related PPPs, the survey and impact assessment of the development alternatives in the Basin and the identification of indicators for monitoring the Plan
watershed management plans; strategic environmental assessment; environmental planning
