Implementation of a Landscape Perspective in Swedish Spatial Planning: A need for a relational approach

Last changed: 30 March 2023

The aim of this project was to promote learning and capacity building in the implementation process through close collaboration with stakeholders in the field. Understanding the mechanisms behind and efforts to bridge gaps between international policy and implementation in a national context, at both regional and local levels, is of significant societal importance.

The project was timely, as implementation of the European Landscape Convention in Sweden is now in its starting phase. The innovative approach of this project was to focus on the implementation of a landscape perspective in spatial planning and the crucial factor in the capacity building that is called relational resources.

This project had its basis in two societal phenomena:

firstly, the general implementation issues that arise when gaps appear in the chain of implementation between the national and the local level;
secondly the variation, both content-wise and linguistic, that characterizes much of the terminology used in communication between different players within spatial planning for sustainable development.

Both of these phenomena was investigated through studies of how a landscape perspective is used in Swedish spatial planning today.

The figure illustrates how ELC is communicated within and between different policy levels. In the left column are examples of stakeholders on different levels. The column in the middle gives examples of tasks on each policy level. In the right column you find different identified policy communities consisting of stakeholders from the different policy levels. Illustration: Erik Olsson

The illustration is taken from the report Nationella, regionala och kommunala aktörer om implementering av den europeiska landskapskonventionen i Sverige. Planering och förvaltning av landskap, Rapporter - institutionen för stad och land 2/2014