ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the Swedish experience of developing methods of landscape assessment in a wider Nordic context, and in the context of how the ELC has been put into practice in Sweden. The place of landscape in the Swedish planning system is examined, notably in the municipal översiktsplan at local level, and an historical overview is given of the development of a wide range of Swedish approaches to landscape characterisation, which has a long tradition in Sweden, from the travelogues of Carl von Linné and twentieth century landscape writers to today’s increasingly active development of practices for landscape analysis and assessment. This is followed by examples of the current use of landscape characterisation in landscape analysis in Sweden. Landscape has also long been a central, but sometimes imprecise, theme in Swedish planning, but as in other countries, difficulties abound for coordinating overall, cross-sectoral, treatment of the landscape.
