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A.B.L. was supported by a Juan de la Cierva-Incorporación grant (IJCI-2017-31419) from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities; J.V.L.B. by a Ramón & Cajal research contract (RYC-2015-18932) from the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (…), Cimatti, M., Ranc, N., Benítez-López, A., Maiorano, L., Boitani, L., Cagnacci, F., Čengić, M., Ciucci, P., Huijbregts, M.A.J., Krofel, M., López-Bao, J.V., Selva, N., Andren, H., Bautista, C., Ćirović, D., Hemmingmoore, H., Reinhardt, I., Marenče, M., Mertzanis, Y., Pedrotti, L., Trbojević, I., Zetterberg, A., Zwijacz-Kozica, T., Santini, L.

Recent years have shown a rapid increase in the number of published studies that advocate network analysis (graph theory) to ecologically manage landscapes that suffer from fragmentation and loss of connectivity. This paper studies the reasons, benefits and difficulties of using network analysis to manage landscape fragmentation in the practice of land-use planning. The results are based on interviews with thirteen municipal ecologists and environmental planners in Stockholm, Sweden, who had been introduced to a GIS-tool for network-based connectivity analysis. Our results indicate that fragmentation is not considered enough in municipal planning and demonstrate that none of the interviewed practitioners used systematic methods to assess landscape connectivity. The practitioners anticipate that network-level and patch-level connectivity measures and maps would help them to communicate the meaning and implications of connectivity to other actors in the planning process, and to better assess the importance of certain habitats affected by detailed plans. The main difficulties of implementing network-based connectivity analyses reported by the respondents related to the choice of focal species and the lack of model input in terms of landscape data and dispersal distances. The main strengths were expressed by the practitioners as graphical, quantitative and credible results; the ability to compare planning alternatives and to find critical sites in a more objective manner than today; and to relate local planning and ecology to the regional structure of the landscape. Many respondents stressed the role of fragmentation assessments in the endeavor to overcome current spatial mismatches of ecological and administrative scales.

In order to build competence for sustainability analysis and assessment of urban systems, it is seen as essential to build on models representing urban form, landuse and transportation, urban metabolism, as well as ecological processes. This type of analysis of interacting sub-systems requires an advanced model integration platform, yet open for learning and for further development. Moreover, since the aim is to increase urban experience with ecosystem management in the wide sense, the platform needs to be open and easily available, with high visualisation capacity. For this purpose, the LEAM model was applied to the Stockholm Region and two potential future scenarios were developed, resulting from alternative policies. The scenarios differed widely and the dense urban development of Scenario Compact could be visualised, destroying much of the Greenstructure of Stockholm, while Scenario Urban Nature steered the development more to outer suburbs and some sprawl. For demonstration of the need for further development of biodiversity assessment models, a network model tied to a prioritised ecological profile was applied and altered by the scenarios. It could be shown that the Greenstructure did not support this profile very well. Thus, there is a need for dynamic models for negotiations, finding alternative solutions and interacting with other models. The LEAM Stockholm case study is planned to be further developed, to interact with more advanced transport and land use models, as well as analysing energy systems and urban water issues. This will enable integrated sustainability analysis and assessment of complex urban systems, for integration in the planning process in Stockholm as well as for comparative sustainability studies between different cities, with the goal to build more sustainable urban systems and to increase urban experiences in ecosystem management.

Graph theory and network analysis have become established as promising ways to efficiently explore and analyze landscape or habitat connectivity. However, little attention has been paid to making t ...

Sustainable urban development has been widely recognized as requiring energy and transport efficient urban growth, while ecological issues are often not well integrated in sustainability assessments and Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). In order to achieve such integration, methods and tools based on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in a Landscape Ecological Assessment (LEA) framework were developed and integrated in planning in four case studies in and around the city of Stockholm, Sweden. This involved the application of recently developed methods for impact prediction and for integration into the planning processes. The aim of the study was to compare the case studies concerning strengths and weaknesses of LEA and its GIS-based components. The methodology enabled identification of important structures in the landscape to support biodiversity, across administrative borders. The LEA facilitated discussions on consequences of alternatives for localisation of built-up areas, infrastructure and other developments as well as management. The GIS-based LEA approach could thus contribute to a sustainable urban development with consideration of the landscape-level biodiversity values integrated with energy-efficient urban growth trajectories.