Multifunctional Wetlands and Stakeholder Engagement: Lessons from Sweden

The document assesses Sweden's progress in constructing wetlands to make agriculture more sustainable, noting that the country achieved only 60% of its 12,000-hectare target between 2000 and 2010. It argues for a shift from a narrow focus on nutrient retention toward a multifunctional approach that includes flood control, biodiversity, and irrigation. Key barriers identified include complex water legislation, insufficient financial compensation for farmers, and coordination challenges. Conversely, enabling factors include strong political priority, inter-institutional collaboration, and a robust knowledge base. The paper recommends adopting a water basin approach and involving local actors to foster long-term relationships with landowners.

• Sweden failed to meet its national target for wetland restoration between 2000 and 2010, achieving only 60% of the goal to add 12,000 hectares of wetlands in the agricultural landscape.
• While the primary goal of wetland construction has been nutrient retention (nitrogen and phosphorus), wetlands provide multiple other ecosystem services, including flood risk reduction, irrigation reservoirs, biodiversity enhancement, recreation, and biomass production for biogas.
• The Rural Development Programme (RDP) is the primary financial channel, but its structure often limits the scale and location of projects because it relies on individual farmer initiatives rather than coordinated water basin planning.
• Financial compensation through the RDP is often insufficient to cover the income loss farmers face when converting productive cropland into wetlands, leading to non-optimal siting of wetlands on less productive land.
• Complex and outdated water legislation, including old drainage permits and the requirement for consensus among all members of a drainage project, acts as a significant barrier to implementation.
• Implementation is hindered by diverging goals between different national authorities and units within County Administrative Boards (CABs), such as conflicts between nature conservation (biotope protection) and agricultural development.
• Successful large-scale projects in Sweden, such as those in the Kävlingeån and Smedjeån rivers, have typically adopted a water basin approach and involved diverse stakeholders and municipalities.
• Key enabling factors for progress include high political priority, the existence of a strong knowledge base (such as the 'Focus on Nutrients' initiative), and the availability of complementary funding beyond the RDP, such as the Marine Environment Grant.

APA

Andersson, K. (2012). Multifunctional Wetlands and Stakeholder Engagement: Lessons from Sweden. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Air-land-water-resources/sei-wp-2012-08-sweden-wetlands.pdf

Chicago

Andersson, Kim. Multifunctional Wetlands and Stakeholder Engagement: Lessons from Sweden. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2012. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Air-land-water-resources/sei-wp-2012-08-sweden-wetlands.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Andersson |first1=Kim |title=Multifunctional Wetlands and Stakeholder Engagement: Lessons from Sweden |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=December 2012 |url=https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Air-land-water-resources/sei-wp-2012-08-sweden-wetlands.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{andersson2012multifunctional, author = {Andersson, Kim}, title = {{Multifunctional Wetlands and Stakeholder Engagement: Lessons from Sweden}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2012}, month = dec, url = {https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Air-land-water-resources/sei-wp-2012-08-sweden-wetlands.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }