"This is what we did last time". Uncertainty over landscape analysis and its procurement in the Swedish road planning process

Abstract

In some European countries, landscape analysis has long been used in support of large-scale planning or major projects such as new trunk roads and mainline rail routes, in line with both the UN's Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment and the European Landscape Convention. Some countries, however, lack a regulatory framework for what should be analysed, how a landscape analysis should be conducted, or even how it should be procured. Sweden is one such country. The research project on which this article is based uses in-depth interviews with twelve key Swedish officials to consider landscape analysis issues in the planning and procurement of road and railway infrastructure. The findings point to the fact that skilled transport planners are not entirely comfortable with the current situation, and the way landscape analysis is handled in daily planning practice varies enormously. For example, nearly all the respondents believe that the way formal landscape analyses are procured is important, not least to ensure quality, yet at the same time they are rarely commissioned separately, even when this is explicitly stipulated by the regulations. There is no generally accepted notion of what 'landscape' might be, and the terms in which respondents describe the landscape do not correspond to the official landscape terminology as set down in the ELC. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords

Landscape assessment; Environmental impact assessment (EIA); ELC; Transport infrastructure planning; Interviews

Published in

Land Use Policy
2015, volume: 42, pages: 48-57
Publisher: ELSEVIER SCI LTD

SLU Authors

• Åkerskog, Ann

  • Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Global goals (SDG)

SDG9 Industry, innovation and infrastructure

UKÄ Subject classification

Public Administration Studies
Landscape Architecture

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2014.07.001

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/76169