The purpose of this section is to help identify existing and predicting potential future environmental problems. This helps focus the SEA and streamline the subsequent stages. It is a requirement of the SEA legislation to consider this.
Referring to the current legislation and state of the environment is useful to identify potential problems.
It is also important to define the level of detail of the problems, for example at national, regional and local level.
Some examples of typical environmental problems at national, regional and local level can be found here: