Geosystem Services for Subsurface Planning in Sweden: A Pilot Survey

Being a complement to ecosystem services (ES), geosystem services (GS) is a novel concept that helps identify and understand the contributions of the diversity of geological structures and processes of nature to human wellbeing. A pilot survey was carried out to Swedish municipalities in order to: (i) in a systematic way investigate if and how they currently approach GS in their spatial planning processes, and (ii) analyze and follow up responses for further improvement of the questionnaire for a Sweden-wide survey. None of the ten out of 26 responding municipalities currently use the term GS in their spatial planning processes. Some GS are already considered in municipal spatial planning processes in Sweden, though the term GS is currently not used. No clear patterns of including GS in spatial planning were however observed, except for three out of twenty GS. Social and child impact assessments and the Swedish standard on Biodiversity survey, which were the most frequently used methods for including ES in the municipal spatial planning processes in Sweden, could potentially be extended to GS.