Uses of the word ‘landskap’ in Swedish municipalities’ comprehensive plans: Does the European Landscape Convention require a modified understanding?

Abstract This paper examines the potential of Swedish comprehensive plans and thematic additions to such plans in the implementation of the European Landscape Convention (ELC): specifically by comparing how the word landscape is used. First, we reviewed a selection of Swedish municipal comprehensive plans by recording the use of variations of the term landscape. Second, we studied the contextual usage of these recorded variations to see if it was compatible with the seemingly holistic approach in the ELC. Third, we discuss whether our sample of comprehensive plans presented obstacles to the implementation of the ELC. We carried out this research by identifying the Swedish word 'landskap' (Eng. landscape) in a sample of comprehensive plans published prior to the implementation of the ELC in Sweden. A requirement for the study was that the meanings of landscape in English are not necessarily equivalent to the meanings of ‘landskap’ in Swedish. In the reviewed plans 119 different terms originating from the word landscape were detected although no clear definitions of the terms were given in the plans. The authors of the plans used the word 'landskap' in multiple ways in order to specify a wide range of aspects related to landscape. The absence of definitions entails a risk that planners and decision-makers incorrectly assume that the concepts are familiar to potential readers of the documents. Many different uses of the word indicate that the word itself was considered to be useful in planning processes, but hardly connected to an explicit theoretical framework as intended in the ELC. Based on the usage in our sample, we discuss classifications of the word landscape and distinguish three main categories for its use: policy, process, and characterisation. The results contribute to an understanding of the introductory guidelines that need to be developed if the comprehensive plans would operate as effective instruments for comparable implementation of the ELC across the country. Nevertheless, this study indicates that the comprehensive planning in Sweden is suited for the implementation of ELC. An appropriate approach in planning may be to arrange negotiations between the parties concerned in the process regarding the local landscape in terms of values that people associate with the particular landscape and its roles at a current location. The comprehensive planning processes are suggested as natural arenas for such negotiations.