IMPLEMENTERING AV EKOSYSTEMTJÄNSTER I MILJÖPLANERING : En jämförelse mellan små och stora kommuner i Sverige

Ecosystem services (ES) are highly important for the municipalities to work with since their function as decision-making authority decides about the exploitation of the commune. The degrading of biodiversity is at its highest speed and the ecosystems and the services they provide is at stake. The EU and the Swedish government have therefore decided on goals for ES which affect the municipalities. The purpose of this study is to investigate how Swedish municipalities are working with ES, focusing on the environmental planning, and whether there is a difference between larger and smaller municipalities. A survey was sent to all municipalities in Sweden and 135 of them participated. Comparison was done between three groups depending on population size. The results show that despite all the goals, guidelines and methods that exist, something is missing. Only half of them uses the guidelines and methods, and more than half of them says that knowledge partially is missing among them. There is a difference in this integration and knowledge when comparing large municipalities to smaller ones, which can be explained by lack of expertise, budget and time, but also lack of exploration in smaller municipalities. To achieve the goals and improve the work with ES, simple, user- friendly guidelines and methods is requested but also a widespread knowledge in the whole management. One big reason why not all municipalities are working with this is lack of legislation