Barriers to the implementation of climate change adaptation in land use planning: A multi-level governance problem? Open Access

Adaptation to climate change has been recognised as an important policy goal in Europe at the national level (Biesbroek et al., 2010) and also in European cities (Carter, 2011). In the past 10 years, most European countries have published a national adaptation strategy that outlines the strategic approach to reduce the vulnerability and adapt to the impacts of climate change (Swart et al., 2009). Simultaneously, cities and regions have pursued their own adaptation strategies, in conjunction with or separately to those pursued at the national level (Ribeiro et al., 2009; Carter, 2011), outlining action on adaptation that varies from strategic objectives to actual technical measures to counter specific climate risks.

The existence of an adaptation strategy does not, however, equal the implementation of adaptation. There are numerous challenges related to implementation, which have now become known as the barriers to adaptation in the literature. In fact, a recent review of research on barriers to adaptation action highlighted that the list of barriers that is accumulating in the literature is both impressive and seemingly endless (Biesbroek et al., 2013). Whilst acknowledging that the existence of barriers is always to an extent context-specific, there are a number of general categories that have emerged out of the literature. According to Biesbroek et al., the majority of the barriers relate to institutional, social and information dimensions of adaptation and financial and cognitive issues are also recognised as important in the analyses.

Interestingly, it is the local level that appears to have been the main focus of analysis in the existing literature (Biesbroek et al., 2013). It seems that at least part of the explanation for the existence of local-level barriers is the result of poor cross-level interaction. Hence, there is a need to examine the extent to which the multi-level governance context creates barriers for implementation, which this paper does by asking whether there is a misconception about the possibility of finding a solution to this problem at the local level. This paper analyses the implementation of adaptation strategies by focusing on the land use sector, a key field in adaptation. To do this, this paper examines the adaptation strategy at the national level in Finland, as well as the regional adaptation strategy of the Helsinki Metropolitan region.

The analytical framework based on literature on multi-scale governance in which the authorities responsible for the implementation, the policy objectives of adaptation and policy instruments are important. Here, scale refers to an analytical dimension, whilst level indicates a point on that scale (Gibson et al., 2000). First, this paper discusses the research problem of multi-scale adaptation by examining the challenges faced by cities in relation to adaptation, and where the decision-making power lies in relation to them. Second, this paper presents three analytical concepts that can used to explore the barriers to implementation, drawing on the emerging literature on the barriers in adaptation, as well as literature on the multi-level governance frameworks. Third, a case study of the multiple Finnish adaptation processes is introduced with a specific focus on land use planning. The findings show that there are barriers that cannot be solved at the local level, confirming that there is a misconception that barriers can be solved at the local level.

Human actions have become the main drivers of environmental change, including climate change (Rockström et al., 2009; Folke, 2011). Globally, urban areas are key players in this unprecedented change, having been the main contributors to these processes by emitting greenhouse gases and using natural resources on a vast scale. Increasingly, cities are also becoming the places where the impacts of these changes are being felt. Given that approximately three-quarters of all large cities are located in the coastal areas, the threat of sea level rise as a result of climate change causes concern (Carter, 2011).

Cities in Europe have particular traits associated with location, structure and population density that make their residents and assets vulnerable to climate change (Hunt and Watkiss, 2011, Gasper et al., 2011). Despite the fact that vulnerability to climate change is dependent on numerous factors, many of which are case-specific, the impacts will affect most sectors in the city and are closely linked to their land use planning. In many cities located in low-lying areas, the population and infrastructure are at risk in terms of flooding, disruptions to food systems and industry (Gasper et al., 2011) and transport (Love et al., 2010; Suarez et al., 2005). Finally, dense urban structures can also contribute to heat-related mortality even in the more Northern cities in Europe (Wichmann et al., 2011; Rocklöv and Forsberg, 2010).

In face of these challenges, cities have begun to act in a proactive manner, by pursuing both mitigation and adaptation strategies. According to Anguelovski and Carmin, this trend of urban climate governance refers to the ways in which public, private and civil society actors and institutions articulate climate goals, exercise influence and authority and manage urban climate planning and implementation processes (Anguelovski and Carmin, 2011). Adaptation strategies at the city level tend to address the specific climate vulnerabilities and impacts that are particularly relevant to the city in question, focusing on land use, traffic, environment, infrastructure, rescue services and public safety.

Simultaneously to this development, national strategies have been pursued in many European countries. A recent review of national strategies reveals that most of the national strategies in Europe address a wide array of sectors[¹] (Biesbroek et al., 2010), thus creating a situation where the focus areas for city- and national-level policy overlap and touch upon the same sector.

The discussion on implementation is increasingly moving towards identifying limits and barriers to adaptation. The two concepts are often used to denote the same thing, although some make a distinction between the two (Moser and Ekstrom, 2010). On the one hand, limits, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), refer to thresholds beyond which systems cannot be maintained (IPCC, 2007). Barriers, on the other hand, are defined as the obstacles that can be overcome through a number of means, including changes in thinking and management cultures, political will or social support (Moser and Ekstrom, 2010; IPCC, 2007).

Barriers related to successful adaptation that have been identified so far include failures of collective decision-making, the public good nature of threatened resources, uncertainties over information and lack of clarity over who is responsible for adaptation (Tompkins et al., 2010). Although the uncertainty and lack of information about climate change impacts can be considered to be an adaptation-related barrier specifically, the others are familiar challenges when it comes to the governance of public goods as a whole.

Biesbroek et al. (2013) divide barriers into different categories, drawing on existing literature. These are institutional, social, informational and financial, both at the organisational and individual levels. Social barriers are related to the social and cultural processes that govern how individuals respond to climate stimuli and how they act on this stimulus (Jones and Boyd, 2011). These can include, for example, cognitive, normative and institutional determinants, such as denial and helplessness, values and caste. In addition, a number of cultural barriers have been identified that tend to be context-specific, making generalisation very challenging (Nielsen and Reenberg, 2010).

Within European policy processes, a number of generic barriers have been identified, including, policy-based barriers, such as limited overarching policy frameworks that support action at lower levels (Carter, 2011). Furthermore, at the local level, lack of different types of capacities, such as political will, human resources, expertise, knowledge and information are considered to be barriers to implementation (Westerhoff et al., 2011; Glaas et al., 2010). Burch divides barriers into three categories, where regulatory barriers refer to the policy tools that municipalities have to use, whilst structural and operational barriers are those that arise from organisational hierarchy and how this affects inter-departmental collaboration, for example. Finally, behavioural barriers arise when both personal and institutional cultures inhibit actors within organisations from taking steps towards implementation (Burch, 2010).

As pointed out by Biesbroek et al. (2013), local-level studies have dominated these “first generation barriers studies”. This can also be seen in the two studies on local barriers to adaptation that have drawn conclusions of the implementation challenges at the local level. A study of Australian local adaptation plans revealed barriers that included lack of technical data, staffing resources and funding (Baker et al., 2012). Similar issues were identified in Norway, where a survey of all municipalities revealed barriers to adaptation associated with lack of data and unfamiliarity with it, and lack of information on climate change, as well as local expertise (Amundsen et al., 2010). Interestingly, both studies consider lack of adequate coordination, or attention paid to other levels of governance, as a source to at least some of the local-level barriers. Furthermore, Amundsen et al. (2010) argue that the failure of implementation at the local level has been the result of a lack of clear assignment of roles to municipalities to set goals, problems in creating regulation and lack of financing adaptation processes.

Hence, as the literature on barriers accumulates, Baker et al. argue that the discussion has become somewhat stagnant, with most studies addressing a fairly standard list of issues, including lack of different kinds of resources from economic to human (Baker et al., 2012). According to the authors, it is now appropriate to question whether there is a misconception that this problem of barriers can be solved at the local level in the first place. Rather, barriers such as lack of clear roles and responsibilities for the local government and an absence of statutory obligations and the interplay of other policies constrain the local sector more than its own capacity. This line of argument then points to the role of other levels of government, which can constrain adaptation by either creating barriers through existing rules and norms that result in lower levels’ inability to act.

It is evident in light of the current literature that there are local barriers, but more attention has to be paid to the scale dependency of barriers in adaptation. In environmental governance-related literature, complexity and issues of scale have been recognised for some time now (Padt et al., 2014; Cash et al., 2006). Increasingly, it is argued that those who study institutions need to recognise their complexity and non-linearity and the role of multiple scales that are involved in these often self-organising governance systems (Ostrom, 2010), whilst not forgetting the increasing role of the new modes of governance (Healey, 2006). To solve these complex common problems, it is necessary to acknowledge that action needs to emerge at multiple scales and to encourage experimental research through different governance systems across scales (Ostrom, 2008).

In understanding social organisation in solving environmental problems, it is recognised that institutional interaction occurs across multiple scales in governance systems (Young, 2002; Pahl-Wostl, 2009). According to Pahl-Wostl (2009), institutions play a central role here, including informal institutions. Interaction across scales has partly been seen as a result of the dispersal of authority from the state to other actors, either at the supra-national or sub-national level. In addition, actor networks and their interactions across multiple levels and identification of the modes of governance are important. In particular, this issue has become central when examining the developments of European environmental policy (Jordan, 2005).

The issue of scale itself is a relatively recent area of study as the complexity of interactions in society–environment relations is acknowledged (Cash et al., 2006). It has also been recognised that the study of scale has been less of an interest to social science, the result of which has been that research efforts have been less explicit, less precise and quite varied (Gibson et al., 2000). In this paper, in analogy to Gibson et al., the scale refers to an analytical dimension, i.e. spatial, temporal, organisational or jurisdictional. Level then further indicates a specific point on the scale that is examined more closely.

Further, Cash et al. (2006) define many different scales which are relevant to understanding scale dynamics. Of particular interest here are the jurisdictional and institutional scales. The jurisdictional scale refers to the levels within which administrations and political authority are located between the intergovernmental, national, regional and local levels. The institutional scale refers to rules and norms that are used to organise society, beginning from constitutions that are translated into laws and regulations and later into operational rules.

There have been a few studies that examine the multi-level governance of adaptation and adaptive capacity (Westerhoff et al., 2011). For example, a study of adaptation in the UK argues that policies from the national scale can constrain adaptation at the local level by limiting its ability to act on adaptation (Urwin and Jordan, 2008). Urwin and Jordan further argue that it is necessary adopt a view that examines both processes of negotiating policy aims and objectives at the national level, as well as translating these into action at the local level.

In addition to the focus on the local, most studies have also assessed the practical side of policy making by examining the challenges that municipality decision-makers face in their daily work. Whilst important, this paper argues that there is a need to analyse how these barriers can play out in the implementation in terms of institutional and jurisdictional scales, as these can contribute to barriers emerging at the local level. Thus, there is a need to identify, based on literature, what the relevant analytical concepts are that can help to tease out the barriers.

The jurisdictional scale refers to the structure and organisation of societies and how authority is allocated to different levels, most commonly from global to local (Termeer and Dewulf, 2014; Padt and Arts, 2014). To understand how barriers may emerge as a result of multi-level governance, it is necessary to assess who at a particular level is in a position of authority and how that authority extends to other levels. Authority is important in implementation, and actors are key in understanding how they are hierarchically organised (Padt and Arts, 2014). It is then on the institutional scale that policy objectives and instruments play out and show how policies are being implemented. Political aspirations can be manifested through scalar narratives that define the objectives of governance (Padt and Arts, 2014). Therefore, the analytical concepts focused in this paper are threefold as follows.

First, it is important to pay attention to the actors at multiple levels that take part in the decision-making processes (Pahl-Wostl, 2009). These actors can have the authority to regulate or steer actions of other actors also, or they can be engaged in action without actual power to affect the processes or the actions of others. As the sphere of decision-making has widened, more actors within and outside the government have become included in these processes. The roles and the responsibilities of actors across the scales are important because they help to clarify questions such as who steers whom and what in terms of adaptation. Further, examining the actors also enables one to focus on the issue of authority over policy-making and implementation.

Second, the objective of adaptation policy is important when identifying potential barriers. The focus and framing of adaptation policy can be conflicting across levels for a number of reasons. Previous research has demonstrated that adaptation can be understood at different levels in different ways and these can vary significantly also within a country (Juhola et al., 2011; Lindseth, 2005). This can be partly due to specific local vulnerabilities for which adaptation is necessary but which are not considered a main priority nationally, thus creating a divergence in the objectives of adaptation policy. However, it can also be the case that the objectives of adaptation policy are influenced by other political processes, and this can lead to conflicting objectives that then create barriers to implementation.

Third, it is necessary to identify what kinds of policy instruments are being used. These are crucial in understanding how adaptation is implemented and whether they contribute to barriers. There are a number of new policy instruments that have emerged in Europe in the past 20 years (Jordan, 2005; Jordan et al., 2003). These can include regulatory instruments, such as permits, sanctions, legislation and EU directives. Informational policies include different types of information campaigns, research and development and environmental labelling, for example. Instruments related to planning deal with different planning instruments, such as social and environmental impact assessments. Economic instruments include taxation, emissions permits and other types of payments for the use of environmental resources. In recent years, co-regulatory arrangements have become more popular with different voluntary agreements and networks, becoming part of environmental governance. Finally, there are a number of self-regulatory systems, such as the ISO and EMAS environmental management systems, which organisations can use to improve their environmental performance.

A case study (Yin, 1994) and a document analysis is a suitable research method to assess how barriers may arise from the multi-scale governance setting. This is because official strategies and policy documents provide the best way to identify how the implementation of adaptation is to take place across the levels. Finland is chosen as the case study because it represents a country that has been fast in moving on adaptation, publishing a national adaptation strategy (NAS) already in 2005 (Marttila et al., 2005). Given that Finland has been a forerunner in adaptation, it is also expected that issues related to the implementation are likely to arise earlier than in other countries. Also, evaluations of the NAS have already pointed out the potential issues related to the multi-scale nature of the implementation of the strategy, highlighting the need to examine the issue in more detail (Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, 2009). The focus is specifically on the land use sector for two reasons. First, it is a sector that inherently includes multi-level decision-making processes. Second, land use decisions have a significant impact on the vulnerability of specific locations and thus play a key role in adapting to the impacts of climate change.

The data analysed in this paper consist of policy documents and official decisions that are relevant to adaptation policy-making in the land use sector at the national (Finland), regional (Metropolitan Region of Helsinki and local level [City of Helsinki]). These documents were identified through a search of official government and city websites, where they are available. In terms of the national level, the main documents are the NAS, its two evaluations and the Climate and Energy Strategies from 2005. At the regional level, the Helsinki Region Environment Services (HSY) adaptation strategy is the main document. At the local level, the City of Helsinki has not yet published an official adaptation strategy but documents related to their adaptation work are analysed. These are freely available online through the Environment Centre of the city administration. In the search process, two key words (land use and implementation) were used and further analysed according to the three analytical concepts presented above.

In addition to the document analysis, the author has closely followed the strategy preparation processes by attending a number of meetings where the implementation of these strategies has been discussed[²]. This method of participant observation (Waddington, 2004) helps to further support the data analysis of official documents, particularly since the City of Helsinki is yet to publish an official strategy.

This section examines climate change adaptation in the land use planning sector by comparing the actors, adaptation policy objectives and instruments presented in the NAS and in the adaptation action plan of the Ministry of the Environment, which steers land use at the national level to the regional adaptation strategy of the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. Second, it focuses on what barriers have emerged in the implementation of adaptation in this multi-level context and how the policy objectives have been implemented in the field of land use planning.

On the whole, the field of land use planning is inherently an area of multi-level governance because it includes several levels of public administration. Also, land use defines the physical framework of society, thus relating to all other sectors of the society and administration. The Finnish land use planning system consists of three main levels: national, regional and local. On the one hand, the land use planning system is hierarchical, which means that the lower-level plan must be compatible with the upper-level plan. On the other hand, the planning system has deliberately been developed so that national and regional plans are general in nature and that the specification of details occurs at local level, allowing planners to take into account the local context and emphasising the importance of local self-government (Niemi-Iilahti, 2001).

Within adaptation, the preparation of the NAS was carried out by the Ministry for Agriculture and Forestry with a working group that included participants from all ministries (Marttila et al., 2005). Its implementation has taken place through the normal planning and monitoring of each administrative sector. So far, three ministries have published their own implementation plan for specific measures to be undertaken within their administrative sector (Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, 2009), including the Ministry of the Environment, which deals with land use planning. The first evaluation of the implementation of the NAS states that there are sectors within which adaptation has advanced to a fairly advanced level, namely, in the water resources sector, and there are also sectors within which adaptation has barely been addressed.

Metropolitan-level adaptation action has been taken by the Helsinki Region Environment Services Authority (HSY) that published a strategy in 2012 (HSY, 2012). It encompasses the Helsinki Metropolitan area and has been prepared in collaboration with the four cities within the area, Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa and Kauniainen. This strategy focuses on the adaptation measures in the built and urban environment with the aim of taking measures that enable the authorities to “climate proof” the city.

The implementation of the HSY strategy is in the beginning phases. In the document strategic starting points are outlined, including policy guidelines (HSY, 2012). According to these, adaptation is taken as a key starting point in municipal planning, stressing the importance of using building regulations and guidance, as well as the need to develop technical measures to implement adaptation. The role of the public sector is considered to be that of promoting research at the city level, sharing of information about good practices and building cooperation with interest groups, both public and private, and strengthening the sharing of expertise and networking.

Finally, the city of Helsinki has been involved in a number of projects related to adaptation, mainly funded through international collaboration (Tuusa et al., 2013). The city’s Environment Centre has so far identified a number of possible adaptation measures and is in the process of assessing the feasibility of their implementation. The Environment Centre has led the work and engaged other departments of the city through workshops and seminars, but it has not yet published an overarching strategy for adaptation.

The analysis shows how a multitude of actors are involved in adaptation of the land use planning sector. In terms of the national level, the main actors are the Ministry of Environment, in charge of regulatory mechanisms of the state: land use and construction legislation, national land use guidelines and the national building code. The next planning level includes regional land use plans prepared by the regional council and approved by the Ministry of the Environment. The regional councils are administrative bodies, whose main responsibilities are regional development, regional strategic planning and regional land use planning, and they are also cooperation forums for municipalities. A regional plan is related to two other regional-wide strategic documents: regional development strategy and regional programme.

Other actors in the formal land use planning system are the monitoring authorities, the Ministry of the Environment and the 15 Centres for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment, which belong to regional state administration and guide municipalities’ land use planning within their area of authority, as well as monitor that the national land use guidelines and other instructions and guidelines concerning land use, building and their planning are followed. HSY naturally plays an important part at the regional level in the Metropolitan area, but it has no official position of authority in terms of land use planning.

At the local level, the City of Helsinki accounts for detailed land use, building planning, regulation and monitoring, continuing to maintain a monopoly over decisions regarding land use. Local master plans include the municipality’s general land use principles and detailed local plans regulate how land is used and where and what kind of constructions are built. As mentioned before, the City of Helsinki Environment Centre is the major player in terms of adaptation, having participated in several projects related to adaptation. The Environment Centre has not yet drafted an adaptation strategy for the city but has been active in identifying adaptation measures across the city administration. Whilst the city of Helsinki has a land use planning monopoly within its borders, this power does not lie with the Environment Centre but with the Department of City Planning. This creates a sectoral division within the city, denoting that adaptation planning in the city takes place separately from land use decision-making.

Thus, in terms of adaptation within land use planning, the actors involved in the drafting of the two strategies, the national and the regional, are not the actors who are responsible for the decisions affecting land use. The NAS steers adaptation within the environment administration, hence focusing on the Ministry of the Environment itself, as well as on the regional Centres for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment. Similarly, the HSY directs its strategy to its own operations, whilst giving recommendations to its member cities on a voluntary basis. Meanwhile, the entity that holds the decision-making power in terms of land use, the city of Helsinki, has not pursued an adaptation strategy. More importantly, neither the national level nor the regional level actors have power over the city of Helsinki to enforce compliance with their adaptation strategies, creating a situation where there is no actor to implement the adaptation measures outlined in the strategies.

Policy objectives are crucial as they demonstrate the extent to which adaptation strategies are complementary across levels, and this case clearly shows how objectives of adaptation diverge in relation to land use. The NAS outlines the main concern as flooding in relation to land use, with a focus on limitations of land use, appraisal of risk in land use, forecasting changes and reallocation of operations. The adaptation Action Plan of the Ministry of the Environment divides objectives of adaptation measures into four groups:

1. limitations on land use;

2. appraisal of risk in land use;

3. forecasting of changes in the long term and relocation of operations; and

4. information on the possible impacts of climate change (Ympäristöministeriön työryhmä, 2008).

With regards the construction and building sector, the Action Plan concludes that the objectives of adaptation policy are already realised within the current regulation and instructions, including requirements and tools for adaptation.

The HSY regional strategy also outlines adaptation measures for land use planning and construction. Main risks are related to land use decisions that increase the vulnerability of the Helsinki Metropolitan region to the impacts of climate change, particularly flooding due to both sea level rise and increased precipitation. The main objective is to “take the impacts of climate variation, extreme weather events and climate change into account in the land use planning work of municipalities” (HSY, 2012, translated by the author). The responsibility for the implementation of these measures is given to the HSY member cities, creating a situation where the objectives of the regional adaptation policy are not implemented by those who define them but the cities themselves.

Finally, the City of Helsinki has also outlined some objectives for its adaptation action, despite not having drafted an official adaptation strategy. So far, the adaptation-related documents show that at the city level, the main concerns are related to threats to existing infrastructure and the built environment. The Environment Centre has not outlined objectives in relation to the land use sector, but has begun mapping possible adaptation measures. The main focus has been placed on the management of surface run-off water, which is considered to be a major risk within the city. In addition, the improvement of adaptation advice to the city administration is considered an important objective.

The use of policy instruments in land use planning shows how the implementation of adaptation can be steered, if at all, across levels. There are a number of policy instruments that can be used to steer the lower levels from the national levels. The main regulation mechanisms of the state are land use and construction legislation, national land use guidelines and national building code. The national land use guidelines are strategic steering instruments, which regulate the directions of land use planning in questions of national importance. The guidelines consist of general guidelines and binding regulations which the regional and local plans must adhere to. See a summary of tools in Table I.

The current national land use guidelines were revised in 2008 to respond especially to the need to mitigate climate change and to adapt to changes (Juhola, 2010). This revision included a requirement to promote adaptation in land use planning and a requirement to take flood risk assessments and flood risk maps into account and to not build in flood risk areas. Further, they require the municipalities to take storms, heavy rainfall and storm water run-off into account in local planning. Additionally, the NAS states that the current land use and building legislation already set a framework for climate change adaptation. Legislation, planning recommendations and local building ordinances, for example, can also be supplemented when new and more detailed research information emerges.

At the regional level, the Helsinki Metropolitan Area cities, including Helsinki, take part in voluntary and statutory regional cooperation, and the municipal interaction in the field of land use planning is mainly based on voluntary cooperation on specific issues. The HSY accounts for certain public services provision, but it does not have a mandate in the field of land use planning and construction. Hence, the implementation of adaptation depends on the municipalities, as previously mentioned. In the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, the cities have founded a joint advisory boards together, but there is no significant collaboration in land use planning.

As has already become clear, much of the authority in land use planning is maintained by the municipalities, as it is one of the prime areas of local independent authority, which is similar to the other Nordic countries. The municipalities set the physical frame of local development in the plans, and in this particular case, there have been no specific actions taken to incorporate adaptation concerns within the city planning in Helsinki. Furthermore, given that the responsibility of adaptation lies within the Environment Centre of the city, a department that holds no specific power over the land use planning processes within the city, it is unlikely that these concerns will become central in the near future.

There are three main insights that can be drawn from this case study in relation to the barriers to implementation that show how some barriers to implementation can be resolved at the local level whilst others cannot, reinforcing the notion that some barriers to the implementation of adaptation cannot be solved at the local level.

First, the actors related to adaptation in the field of land use decision-making have different spheres of authority. This can result in a situation where those who have the power to act on land use are not directly involved in the adaptation strategy processes. As the case study demonstrates, Finnish municipalities, like their Nordic counterparts, have not traditionally been willing to voluntarily diminish their land use planning authority. The state can influence the lower levels of governance through various ways (land use guidelines and annual negotiations with the municipalities), but they are essentially unable to enforce the implementation of upper-level adaptation strategies at the local level.

Previous research has argued that regional and sub-regional cooperation is often strategic and joint land use plans of several municipalities are rare, even though they do not have to be legally binding (Laitio and Maijala, 2010). Adaptation as a policy issue here appears to go against this trend with all cities in the Metropolitan region participating in the regional adaptation strategy development. However, whilst collaboration on the development of the strategy is seen positively, the implementation of the strategy is left with the cities themselves, and the HSY does not have any authority to influence the land use decisions related to adaptation that the cities themselves make or do not make.

In addition to the vertical governance context, the findings also show how the horizontal governance structure within the city can act as a barrier to implementation. The results here show that adaptation planning is located in a department which does not deal with land use planning. Instead, the department directly in charge has not been involved in the adaptation processes. Previous findings have also shown how each administrative sector and institution within one authority level has their own interest regarding land use, and that these may not be compatible at different levels. It is also common to prioritise short-term advantage over long-term common good (Laitio and Maijala, 2010). This leads to the wider question of how to address the issues of horizontal collaboration and departmental mandates within a city, indicating that there is still a need to move away from adaptation being an “environmental issue”, placed in a department with no real possibility to enforce measures for adaptation.

Second, the analysis of policy objectives shows how there are diverging objectives between the different governance levels in land use planning. The national-level strategy is concerned of flooding in particular, advocating caution over new developments in risk prone areas. At the city level, however, the concern is not the planning and development of new areas but managing existing city structure. Thus, it should also be kept in mind that adaptation policy and practice at the local level is not about the implementation of national objectives alone. Local political and institutional settings, power structures and different interests play a key role too. After all, adaptation decisions do not happen in isolation but are related to and affected by other policy issues and decisions which are contested at the local level (Glaas et al., 2010; Adger et al., 2005; O’Brien et al., 2006; Storbjörk and Hedrén, 2011).

The question of the lack of information, data and knowledge is interesting in relation to the policy aims and objectives of adaptation, given the underlying assumption that local adaptation needs are specific and hence more detailed knowledge is required for implementation. Adger et al. (2005) point out that because different natural systems dominate at different geographical scales, the adaptation issues vary in different scales of administration. In this case study, production of information of the possible future climate impacts, including flooding and sea level rise, has been part of the national and the regional strategy processes but not at the city level, indicating that the most relevant level for implementation has so far been left out.

The lack of adequate knowledge of possible impacts is also linked to other governance problems, for example, the ill-defined roles of authorities. Storbjörk (2007) describes a situation where all authority levels were reluctant to take responsibility for information production and defining adequate safety levels for flooding in Sweden. Similar conclusions have also been reached by others, arguing that this issue is not solved simply by providing the actors with more information, as the problem is the inappropriate use of the information and the way it is disseminated (Frommer, 2013).

Third, the analysis of policy instruments shows a mix of them being used to influence land use decision-making. At the national level, the binding regulations are the main instrument, whilst the NAS merely supports their use in guiding the municipalities in their land use decision-making. The regional-level collaboration of the cities is based on voluntary initiatives with the implementation undertaken by the partner cities themselves without any clear enforcement or follow-up mechanisms.

Previous research has shown that local authorities often expect the state to define their responsibilities and to take the lead in adaptation policy [e.g. for mitigation, see (Bulkeley, Betsill, 2003; Allman et al., 2004)]. Further, the lack of clear national adaptation policy, instructions and guidelines may hinder or delay adaptation at local level, as expectations of the local level remain imprecise (Amundsen et al., 2010; Crabbé and Robin, 2006). Similar findings have emerged from this case study where no specific city-level adaptation measures have emerged nor have any been implemented despite the fact that nearly a decade has passed since the publication of the first national strategy on adaptation.

This leads to a curious situation where neither of the two upper-level adaptation strategies give any clear guidance as to how to assess local vulnerabilities or risks and how to adapt to them within the sector of land use planning. This is partly because the current policy instruments are not designed to do this, and, most importantly, the actors are in no position to act. The municipalities are unlikely to take any instructions or policy guidance into account, given their monopoly on land use in the first place. Thus, it is doubtful whether vertical governance of adaptation could improve land use planning in countries with highly decentralised government, particularly with the current mandate and set of policy instruments.

This case study illustrates that there are indeed misconceptions that barriers to adaptation can be resolved at the local level alone. In fact, some barriers to implementation have been shown to emerge from the multi-level nature of adaptation, whereby the implementation is hampered by lack of authority and guidance, diverging policy goals, as well as policy instruments across the levels. These are not issues that are solely the responsibility of the local-level government but also the result of existing governance structures, and they continue to be exacerbated by them. It has long been acknowledged in the literature that there are weaknesses in terms of the efficiency of multilevel governance, and that the spread of decision-making across multiple levels can lead to ineffectiveness and fragmentation, and this also seems to be case here as barriers to implementation emerge as a result of vertical and horizontal governance.

The land use planning system is inherently hierarchical, and the system allows and supports local autonomy and diversity. Given that adaptation is not advancing at the local level, the question arises whether there is a need to find more mechanisms to steer and enforce adaptation at the local level, even if this contradicts with the principle of local autonomy. Central is also whether local authorities can be expected to produce information needed in adaptation by themselves and define and implement adaptation measures independently. It is also important to keep in mind that land use planning has a significant strategic role in local and regional development more widely and there are other factors besides adaptation concerns which influence planning decisions. Hence, the successful integration of adaptation into planning requires the understanding of the other influencing factors and the frameworks of local and regional land use planning.