Integration of ecosystem services in regional spatial plans in Western Switzerland

The concept of ecosystem services (ES) is regarded as an increasingly important framework and tool to support spatial planning. A limited understanding of how ES knowledge is used in spatial plans constrains our ability to learn from, replicate, and convey an ES approach. This study examined how ES were integrated into spatial planning at the regional scale in Western Switzerland. A directed content analysis of cantonal structural plans was used to assess how ES were covered in various sections of the plans and to explore the differences in the level of ES integration across cantons. First, the results showed that ES were found in each section of the plans but were not equally distributed. Provisioning ES were always the most mentioned while regulating ES were the least considered. Second, strong discrepancies existed between cantons may demonstrate the lack of cantonal coordination to integrate ES. Finally, the concept of ES was more embedded in nonbinding than in binding parts. Promoting the concept at the national level may facilitate the integration of ES at lower planning scales. Further work could focus on other cantons to ensure that the results are fully representative of the current situation in Switzerland.

New perspectives for spatial planning in Switzerland: the role of ecosystem services

Rémi Jaligot

Spatial planning deals with the spatial expression of human activities in an integrated way to minimize their negative impacts on the natural and land systems. Rapid land use and land cover changes are important drivers of change of the benefits people derive from biodiversity and ecosystem functions, known as ecosystem services (ES). The concept of ES has the potential to frame the systematic integration of a comprehensive ecological understanding in spatial planning. In Switzerland, ES may have been affected to different degrees by past and current land management strategies. Better integration of ES into spatial planning requires an understanding of: (i) the relationships between land management strategies and the supply of ES, (ii) the degree of uptake of the ES concept in current planning documents, (iii) the spatio-temporal patterns of ES supply and their drivers of change, and (iv) place-based knowledge to develop planning policies with multiple objectives. The aim of this thesis is to understand the role of ES for spatial planning in Switzerland. Four hypotheses are tested in individual articles published in international peer-reviewed journals. The first article seeks to understand the historical dynamics of ES and analyses regional diversity of ES changes in Swiss cantons. It shows the limited impact of current land management policies to preserve ES supply, and their application at the cantonal level develops long lasting "regionalities" in the supply of ES. The second article includes qualitative aspects to understand the uptake of ES in cantonal structural plans. It shows the strong discrepancies in the level of representation of ES across cantons, the little emphasis put on some ES across all plans, notably in binding parts, and the lack of coordination between cantons. The third paper explores the spatial patterns and drivers of temporal variations of ES supply at the municipal level in the canton of Vaud. It demonstrates that ES trade-offs and synergies vary across space and time and respond to different drivers of change. The last article puts emphasis on stakeholders' preferences and perceptions of ES to better consider ES in planning. It demonstrates the importance of considering different viewpoints of key stakeholders to develop integrated planning measures for ES. Overall, the findings highlight empirically clear territorial clustering of ES at the cantonal and municipal scale. It suggests five areas for intervention: coordination between sectors at the federal and cantonal level; stricter implementation of the Federal Act on Spatial Planning and interdisciplinarity; incentives to assist farmers in changing their ways; revision of the Sectorial Plan on land crop rotation areas; and strengthening the legal framework around the integration, and protection of protected areas and biodiversity in planning. Finally, we discuss two planning alternatives with the use of land sparing and land sharing strategies in Switzerland. We conclude that such dichotomy is not suitable and that both principles could be used to guide spatial planning in hilly and mountainous regions and in the Plateau area, respectively. Altogether, this work contributes to closing the gap between research on ES and the integration of this knowledge in spatial planning. It calls for a paradigm change in spatial planning based on an in-depth understanding of making human benefits from ecosystems explicit, and dealing with trade-offs.

EPFL2020

Ecosystem services and federalism: a case study of Switzerland

Jérôme Chenal, Rémi Jaligot

A fundamental element of a federated state is the division of power between a central government and the component states. Switzerland is a federation consisting of twenty-six sovereign states named canton. Each canton has its own government and parliament, leading to a decentralized public political power. Public policies with a spatial incidence are within the jurisdiction of the Confederation, cantons or municipalities. The vertical division of competences varies between policies and between cantons. This study focuses on land crop rotation areas (LCRAs) to assess the impact of federalism on the preservation of ecosystem services. The concept of LCRAs originates from the Wahlen Plan of 1940, which aimed to double the surface of cultivated land to ensure food self-sufficiency if imports would stop. The criteria applied to define LCRAs are heterogeneous between cantons, and remain unchecked. Slope, altitude and land quality are among numerous criteria used to build cantonal inventories of LCRAs. Various polices have been implemented since the creation of LCRAs, mostly economical to sustain and to intensify agricultural production. However, conflicts between LCRAs and environmental interests such as ecological compensation, watercourse restoration or flood protection affect the provision of ecosystem services (ES), which are the contributions of ecosystems to human well-being. LCRAs provide the service of food production, but their purpose is questioned as Switzerland relies increasingly on food imports and LCRAs are sometimes converted to building zones, further impairing the provision of ES. The current literature focuses largely on ex-ante assessment of ecosystem services. However, this would not allow differentiating the differing implementation strategies of cantons, and explicitly quantify their impact on the provision of ecosystem services. In this contribution, we will demonstrate how an ex-post assessment may be more relevant to detect potential gaps in the implementation of policies in a federal state. The objective is to relate specific actions to a specific impact at the canton level based on empirical evidence, and to incorporate spatio-temporal dynamics that are critical in land-use planning. It can inform decision-makers about future sustainable land-use, and foster the redistribution of resource exploitation, such as food production, to optimize the sustainable provision of other ecosystem services.

2017

Assessing spatial temporal patterns of ecosystem services in Switzerland

Martí Bosch Padros, Jérôme Chenal, Rémi Jaligot

Despite the importance of understanding the historical dynamics of ecosystem services (ES), littleresearch has focused on a historical, spatially explicit, assessment of ES supply. This research is aimed at understanding the spatial patterns and potential drivers of temporal variations of ES supply. It has assessed associations of ES temporal variations, delineated ES bundles from changes in ES supply over time, and identified potential drivers of ES bundles. Finally, we discuss the potential implications for spatial planning. We reconstructed the spatio-temporal pat-terns of 11 ES supply in the canton of Vaud, Switzerland, between 1979 and 2014. We used Spearman’s rank coefficient, k-means clustering and redundancy analysis to understand the spatial patterns and potential drivers of temporal variations of ES supply. Municipalities were grouped into four clusters based on ES supply changes over four decades. Food production showed the most negative associations with other ES. Regulating ES were not always synergetic and were less related to increases in population density than cultural ES, which were found in low population density municipalities. In general, synergetic ES may not respond to the same potential drivers. Municipalities were able to supply ES at different levels but none showed an increase in all ES. ES can be synergetic in one bundle, but antagonistic in another. Different processes can cause a change in the same ES depending on their supply location. It seems unrealistic to require each municipality to have a multifunctional territory in the current political context.