A Case Study of Ecosystem Services in Urban Planning in Finland: Benefits, Rights and Responsibilities

Abstract

The concept of ecosystem services is entering the agenda of land-use planning and scientists optimistically expect it to inform planners and decision-makers about the benefits that ecosystems provide. While tools and methods have been developed for mapping and valuing ecosystem services, only little attention has been paid to the practical application of the approach or its institutional preconditions and implications. We empirically analysed two urban planning processes for building residential areas in the outskirts of growing population centres in Finland. Our analysis of documents and interviews with planners focused on the benefits provided by ecosystems as well as the associated rights and responsibilities. We found that the concept ‘ecosystem service’ was not used, yet various benefits were identified. The rights of different stakeholders to ecosystem services were not explicitly identified, but many ecosystem services were perceived as public goods and particularly access to recreation was highlighted as an important justification for green areas. The results show that while the ecosystem services approach introduces new insights to land-use planning, it is still not embedded in the current practices or institutions. Operationalizing ecosystem services requires institutional adaptation, case-specific tailoring of methods, and deliberation among practitioners and stakeholders.

Key Words:

• Ecosystem services
• urban planning
• land-use planning
• institutions
• Finland

Acknowledgements

This research was conducted in Environmental Policy Centre, Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE), PL 140, 00251 Helsinki, Finland. We would like to thank Leena Kopperoinen for the helpful insights during the course of the research project, and the two reviewers for the perceptive comments. Finally, we wish to thank the interviewees for their insights that constitute the core of this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This research was funded by the Ministry of the Environment of Finland, under the project titled ‘From ecosystem service research to governance: A literature review and case studies (ERGO II)’. This work was also supported by the European Union, under FP7 projects BESAFE (FP7-ENV.2011.282743) and OpenNESS (FP7-ENV.2012.6.2-1).