Regional governance and local translations into urban planning in times of climate change

The research examines how regional policy documents and visions of sustainable development are shaped, interpreted, and used in municipal urban planning in times of climate change and intensifying natural hazard risks. Despite substantial investments in climate action and governance to counter this development, the problems seem to increase. The project takes this inertia as its point of departure and analyses how regional governance, knowledge production, and local practices interact when climate and environmental goals are to be realised.

Background and research questions:
Strategic policies and vision statements are deliberately formulated in an abstract manner targeting long-term goals – a “visionary ambiguity” to create commitment for various local actors to mobilize action in a certain direction. This vagueness implies that uncertainties and conflicts of interests may remain hidden, and thus that the outcome becomes conditioned by local actors’ understanding, translation and use of them. The project investigates how environmental and climate issues are problematized and expressed in the Stockholm regional development plan (RUFS): a policy to provide steering signals and interpretive frameworks for municipal land- and water-use planning towards a sustainable regional development for growth and competitiveness. It moreover examines how RUFS is interpreted and used by local actors in municipal urban planning practices. Three questions are addressed: 

•    How do interests about environmental and climate issues of involved actors align and/or clash in the handling of in the process of drafting the RUFS? 
•    How is the RUFS policy mobilized, translated and used in municipal urban planning practices involving environmental and climate issues? 
•    What are local actors' incentives, as well as obstacles and limitations, to include climate adaptation and environmental responsibility in their planning action?
The research contributes to knowledge about how regional environmental governance is produced and translated into practice, and more specifically how local interpretations of greening concepts both enable and constrain sustainable transformation. The ambition is to identify pathways towards more coordinated, knowledge-based, and resilient municipal and regional planning.

Research approach:
The research is conducted in two parts with distinct but complementary foci.

Part 1 analyses two drafting processes of the RUFS policy (RUFS 2050, 2060) and examines how “visionary ambiguity”, goal conflicts, and divergent interpretations generate variation in how climate and environmental objectives can be integrated into local planning. We combine document analysis of consultation responses with interviews with key contributors to understand how greening concepts—such as ecosystem services, climate adaptation, and nature-based solutions—are integrated, often with diverse underlying meanings, within the RUFS process.

Part 2 deepens the analysis by examining how recurring greening concepts in the RUFS policy are interpreted and translated by local experts, with a focus on municipal officials, external consultants, and environmental organisations. This part also analyses how these translations shape risk assessment and long-term societal resilience. Document studies are combined with interviews with local experts to understand how climate, environmental, and risk issues are given meaning, priority, and practical impact in planning processes.

Further information:
The research is funded by Region Stockholm (2026–2027) and Länsförsäkringars forskningsstiftelse (2026–2028)