摘要: |
The Swedish government has decided that "by the year 2018, at the latest, the importance of biological diversity and the value of ecosystem services should be commonly known and be integrated in economical statements, political decisions and other decisions in society where so is relevant and reasonable". Ecosystem services are the direct and indirect contributions of ecosystems to human well-being, i.e. the values that nature gives us humans. Services from the ecosystems gives us air- and water purification, materials, food and recreation, among others. County administrative boards and the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency have said that the Swedish Transport Administration needs to start investigating ecosystem services within road and railroad projects. In the Government bill on Environmental assessments the Swedish government clarifies that ecosystem services is covered by the definition of environmental effect. Environmental effects are the effects that should be identified, described and evaluated within an environmental impact assessment for a project. Hence there is a great need to immediately map how ecosystem services has been evaluated in existing environmental impact assessments for roads and railroads, to be able to draw well-informed and wise conclusions on how it is suitable to handle ecosystem services in the future. If not done now, decisions will be taken within every single project without scientific basis and holistic views, something we definitely want to avoid. In Sweden it has not been studied how ecosystem services has been investigated in environmental impacts assessments for roads and railroads. The science project ESBESIA5 has through case-studies evaluated how ecosystem services can be handled in environmental impact assessments, although none of the case studies involved a road or railroad project. We therefore want to conduct a similar study but with focus on road and railroad projects. From case studies of road and railroad projects conclusions can be drawn about how ecosystem services have been handled when planning for roads and railroads so far, and how it is possible so visualize and assess the consequences for ecosystem services in the ongoing planning of roads and railroads. The purpose of this project is to initiate the process of integrating ecosystem services in decisions regarding planning of infrastructure. The goal is to fulfill the governmental milestone, se above, within the sector of roads and railroads. |