Learning From Practice : Exploring the Relationship Between Land Subsidence, Climate Change and Flood Risk in Swedish Municipal Level Strategic Planning

Abstract: Land subsidence is in international academic literature recognised as a significant problem for urban environments. The phenomenon can cause severe damage to infrastructure and buildings resulting in expensive repairs or permanent damage to the ground’s conditions and services. In more recent literature, academics have started to connect an increase in land subsidence occurrences to climate change. Performed as a qualitative case study, this thesis research how the relationship between land subsidence and climate change can be understood by exploring Gothenburg municipality’s strategic planning strategies for climate adaptation for flood risk. The research utilizes the qualitative methods of document analyses and semi-structured interviews. The thesis’ results show the relationship between land subsidence and climate change can be understood as a wicked problem in the sense it is hard to define and require multi-level governance to be managed. Benefits for urban planning are identified as increased knowledge on the relationship would bring more comprehensive management of land subsidence on a larger scale as well as enable faster responses in case of risk of climate change-induced land subsidence occurring, threatening the urban environment. Final suggestions are made to further research what information on land subsidence is relevant to include and in which document to enable more strategic management of the topic.