Moving from vision to action- integrating ecosystem services in the Swedish local planning context

Abstract Policies and planning processes related to land use play an important role in maintaining and developing ecosystem services. The incorporation of ecosystem services into local plans is considered an indicator of the plan’s capacity to implement strategic action. This study provides a national overview of the incorporation of the ecosystem service concept in current municipal comprehensive plans in Sweden and explores the actions taken by three municipalities in Stockholm County to implement the ecosystem service concept in practice. A multi-method design was employed including a qualitative content analysis of 231 municipal comprehensive plans, a statistical analysis analyzing temporal changes from 2005 – 2017, and dialogue meetings with municipal practitioners from the three municipalities. We divided the level of integration to four categories, A (Advanced) - D (Not included). Overall, the integration of the ecosystem service concept has significantly increased in municipal comprehensive plans during the last decade. At national level, 23% of municipalities have explicitly mentioned ecosystem services, and within Stockholm County, 42%. The dialogue meetings with municipal practitioners revealed that the municipalities were at different stages of implementing the ecosystem service concept, with diverse actions being implemented for advancing practice. These included capacity building, participatory processes and development of thematic plans and operational documents. To support the future implementation of the ecosystem service concept from vision to action, both local and national initiatives are needed.