Publications

Ahlström, H., Hileman, J., Wang-Erlandsson, L., García, M., Moore, M., Jonas, K., Pranindita, A., Kuiper, J., Fetzer, I., Jaramillo, F., Svedin, U.. 2021. An Earth system law perspective on governing social-hydrological systems in the Anthropocene. Earth System Governance. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.esg.2021.100120

The global hydrological cycle is characterized by complex interdependencies and self-regulating feedbacks that keep water in an ever-evolving state of flux at local, regional, and global levels. Increasingly, the scale of human impacts in the Anthropocene is altering the dynamics of this cycle, which presents additional challenges for water governance. “Earth system law” provides an important approach for addressing gaps in go...

Downing, A., S., Chang, M., Kuiper, J.,J., Campenni, M., Häyhä, T., Cornell, S., Svedin, U., Mooji, W. 2020. Learning from generations of sustainability concepts. Environmental Research Letters, Accepted Manuscript

Background: For decades, scientists have attempted to provide a sustainable development framework that integrates goals of environmental protection and human development. The Planetary Boundaries concept (PBc) – a framework to guide sustainable development – juxtaposes a 'safe operating space for humanity' and 'planetary boundaries', to achieve a goal that decades of research have yet to meet. We here investigate if PBc is suf...

West., S., Haider, J.L., Masterson, V. et al. 2018. Stewardship, care and relational values. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. Available online 5 November 2018. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2018.10.008

Stewardship is a popular term for describing action in pursuit of sustainability. There is growing interest in how relational values, such as care, animate stewardship action. In this paper we develop relational understandings of care in stewardship, in so doing infusing the relational values literature with modes of ‘relational thinking’ increasingly adopted in sustainability science. We use three theoretical perspectives — d...

Enqvist, J.P., West, S., Masterson, V., Haider, J.L., Svedin, U., Tengö, M. 2018. Stewardship as a boundary object for sustainability research: Linking care, knowledge and agency. Landscape and Urban Planning, Volume 179, November 2018, Pages 17-37

Current sustainability challenges – including biodiversity loss, pollution and land-use change – require new ways of understanding, acting in and caring for the landscapes we live in. The concept of stewardship is increasingly used in research, policy and practice to articulate and describe responses to these challenges. However, there are multiple meanings and framings of stewardship across this wide user base that reflect di...

Svedin, U., Liljenström, H. 2018. A Multilevel Approach to Urban Regional Agglomerations: A Swedish Case of Transition Paths toward a “Fossil-Free Society” by 2050, Urban Agglomeration Mustafa Ergen, IntechOpen, DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.73104. Available from: https://www.intechopen.com/books/urban-agglomeration/a-multilevel-approach-to-urban-regional-agglomerations-a-swedish-case-of-transition-paths-toward-a-f

This article has a focus on the changing patterns of connected urban spaces forming large super-regional aggregates made up of cities of various sizes and regional functions as well as the interconnecting space of much smaller municipalities of agricultural or forestry types of character. The multi-scalar level analysis of these connected clusters is pursued from the level of the individual to the regional, national, Nordic an...

Liljenström H., U. Svedin. 2017. A Low Carbon Society by 2050 – The Stockholm-Mälar Region Case. In Ekenberg, L., K. Hansson, M. Danielson, G. Cars et al. Deliberation, Representation, Equity: Research Approaches, Tools and Algorithms for Participatory Processes. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers doi:10.11647/OBP.0108

Svedin U., S. Borgström, H. Liljenström. 2017. Connecting urban and regional socio-ecological transitions: paths to a non-fossil society in the Swedish Stockholm-Mälar area. Procedia Engineering 198: 1036-1045.

Introduction: The embedding of cities in a wider regional frame is central for long term planning regarding the transformation of such parts of society. This holds especially true for urban centers of national or sub national status. In this presentation we are drawing on 4 years of research work and stakeholder consultations in the Swedish part of the EU COMPLEX project dealing with the transition to non fossil societies. In ...

Masterson, V. A., R. C. Stedman, J. Enqvist, M. Tengö, M. Giusti, D. Wahl, and U. Svedin. 2017. The contribution of sense of place to social-ecological systems research: a review and research agenda. Ecology and Society 22(1):49. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-08872-220149

 To develop and apply goals for future sustainability, we must consider what people care about and what motivates them to engage in solving sustainability issues. Sense of place theory and methods provide a rich source of insights that, like the social-ecological systems perspective, assume an interconnected social and biophysical reality. However, these fields of research are only recently beginning to converge, and we see gr...

Liljenström, Hans & Svedin, Uno. 2016. Towards a Fossil-Free Society - in the Stockholm-Mälar Region. 10.13140/RG.2.2.36656.97284.

This volume describes the “Swedish part” (WP4) of the EU project COMPLEX, which has been dealing with pathways to a low carbon society with the Stockholm-Mälar region in focus. COMPLEX started on 1 October 2012 and ended after four years, on 30 September 2016. The central theme of the WP4 research has been to use the Stockholm-Mälar region as a sort of a “laboratory” for modelling and stake-holder interactions, but also for pr...

Svedin U. 2015. Urban development and the environmental challenges: "Green" systems considerations for the EU. In: In: W. Leal Filho, W., A. Ubelis, D. Berzina (Eds.), Sustainable Development, Knowledge Society and Smart Future Manufacturing Technologies, World Sustainability Series, Springer International Publishing, Zurich, Switzerland pp 81-112.

The increased expansion of urban oriented challenges calls for the need to develop related policies in a sustainable development fashion. This means to be alert to the grand challenges to connect environmental/ecological—social—cultural—economic and technical factors. These challenges exist in all parts of the globalized world, not least in the EU domain. But the different parts of the world will have to find their specific w...