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Landowners' incentives for constructing wetlands in an agricultural area in south Sweden

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Author

  • Anna Hansson
  • Eja Pedersen
  • Stefan E. B. Weisner

Summary, in English

Eutrophication of the Baltic Sea has in Sweden led to the initiation of government schemes aiming to increase wetland areas in agricultural regions and thereby reduce nutrient transport to the sea. Landowners play a significant role as providers of this ecosystem service and are currently offered subsidies to cover their costs for constructing and maintaining wetlands. We undertook a grounded theory study, in which landowners were interviewed, aiming at identifying landowners' incentives for constructing wetlands on their land. The study showed that adequate subsidies, additional services that the wetland could provide to the landowner, local environmental benefits, sufficient knowledge, and peers' good experiences could encourage landowners to construct wetlands. Perceived hindrances were burdensome management, deficient knowledge, time-consuming application procedures and unclear effectiveness of nutrient reduction. The main reason for not creating a wetland, however, was that the land was classified as productive by the landowner, i.e., suitable for food production. Current schemes are directed toward landowners as individuals and based on subsidies to cover costs. We propose that landowners instead are approached as ecosystem service entrepreneurs and contracted after a tendering process based on nutrient reduction effects. This would lead to new definitions of production and may stimulate improved design and placement of wetlands. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Publishing year

2012

Language

English

Pages

271-278

Publication/Series

Journal of Environmental Management

Volume

113

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Elsevier

Topic

  • Civil Engineering

Keywords

  • Eutrophication
  • Constructed wetlands
  • Farmers
  • Entrepreneurs
  • Ecosystem
  • services

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0301-4797