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ABSTRACT
While ecosystem-based planning approaches are increasingly promoted through international and national policies, municipalities are still struggling with translating them into practice. Against this background, this paper aims to increase the knowledge of current advances and possible ways to support the implementation of the ecosystem services (ES) approach at the municipal level. More specifically, we analyze how ES have been integrated into comprehensive planning within the municipality of Malmö in Sweden over the last 60 years, a declared forerunner in local environmental governance. Based on a content analysis of comprehensive plans over the period 1956–2014 and interviews with municipal stakeholders, this paper demonstrates how planning has shifted over time toward a more holistic view of ES and their significance for human well-being and urban sustainability. Both explicit and implicit applications of the ES concept were found in the analyzed comprehensive plans and associated programs and projects. Our study shows how these applications reflect international, national, and local policy changes, and indicates how municipalities can gradually integrate the ES approach into comprehensive planning and facilitate the transition from implicit to more explicit knowledge use.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to acknowledge Tyke Tykesson and Annika Kruuse and other personnel at Malmö municipality for their invaluable input to this study.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Per Schubert is Lecturer of Physical Geography with focus on didactics at Malmö University, Sweden. He holds a Ph.D. in physical geography and ecosystem analysis with focus on satellite remote sensing for estimation of carbon dioxide exchange between vegetation and atmosphere. More recent research has focused on ecosystem services, estimations of surface shortwave radiative fluxes, and geographical information systems (GIS) in education.
Nils G. A. Ekelund is Professor of Plant Physiology and head of the department Science, Environment and Society at Malmö University, Sweden. Nils has research experience in the field of aquatic ecosystems where he has been studying the effects of ultraviolet radiation, low temperature, salinity, and other environmental effects on both phytoplankton and macroalgae. His research during the last years has focused on ecosystem services and climate change adaptations.
Thomas H. Beery is a social scientist and an educator with Minnesota Sea Grant at the University of Minnesota Duluth, USA. Trained in environmental education (EdD), his post doctorate within the Man & Biosphere Health research platform at Kristianstad University, Sweden, included investigations of biodiversity conservation and ecosystems services. His research focuses on human-environment relationships, including cultural ecosystem services, human aspects of green infrastructure, human connectedness to nature, and human response to climate change.
Christine Wamsler is Professor of Sustainability Science at the Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS), Sweden, and Honorary Research Fellow of the Urbanism Research Group at the Global Development Institute (GDI) of the University of Manchester, UK. She is trained as an Architect and Urban Planner, holds a Master's degree in International Humanitarian Assistance, a Ph.D. on Urban Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Adaptation, and a postdoctoral lecture qualification in Sustainability Science. Christine is an expert in sustainable urban development, risk reduction, climate adaptation and resilience with an extensive publication record on these issues.
K. Ingemar Jönsson is Professor of Theoretical and Evolutionary Ecology at the School of Education and Environment, Kristianstad University, Sweden. His research has a multidisciplinary profile, including evolution of stress tolerance of invertebrates, governance of ecosystem services, and evolutionary approaches to pro-environmental behavior. He is currently the leader of the multi-disciplinary research platform Man & Biosphere Health at Kristianstad University.
Andreas Roth holds a B.Sc. in Built Environment from Malmö University, Sweden. He has also studied applications of geographical information systems (GIS) within the field of environmental analysis and urban planning at Lund University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Andreas is currently working as an urban planner at the Swedish Transport Administration.
Sanna Stålhammar is a Ph.D. candidate in Sustainability Science at the Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS), Sweden. Her research interests include conceptualisation and integration of different knowledge systems through the ecosystem services approach as well as experiences and social values of biodiversity.
Torleif Bramryd is Professor of Environmental Strategy at Lund University, Campus Helsingborg, Sweden. His research focuses on urban ecology, sustainable city development, and ecosystem services, with focus on the importance of green areas as filter for air and water pollution, recycling, and biogas production from municipal solid wastes, as well as nutrient recycling. He is also responsible for the Swedish part of the EU/Interreg project about sustainable mobility. In most of his present research projects he has a focus on human impact on the global carbon dioxide balance and climate change.
Michael Johansson holds a Ph.D. in Traffic and Road at Lund Technical University, Sweden. His research covers several aspects on sustainability and urban planning. His research interest also focuses on conflicts between hard infrastructure, urban ecosystem services, and green areas in new housing developing areas. Other research areas is renewable energy in sustainable mobility.
Thomas Palo is Professor of Animal Ecology at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden, with an interest in ecosystem services and environmental aspects of humanitarian aid.
Notes
1 The official name of the municipality is Malmö City, despite a large part of the municipal area is rural. Since the term city could be misleading, we use the term Malmö municipality or only Malmö throughout the text.
2 This interpretation was made in close collaboration with Malmö municipality. The municipality is responsive to international policies through international contacts and projects within the environmental field.