This study examines how ecosystem services (ES) have been taken into account historically in strategic spatial plans in Melbourne and Stockholm through a comparative case study analysis of eight strategic spatial plans from 1929-2010. We investigated the types of ES taken into account, and how human-nature relations and the valuation and trade-off discussions regarding ES were framed. An ES coding protocol was developed that categorized and identified 39 ES drawing from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and other relevant literature. Only two of the 39 ES were addressed in every plan for both cities, namely freshwater and recreation. While the number of ES referred to in plans has generally increased over time, just under a third of ES in Melbourne and Stockholm were not addressed at all. References to individual ES showed little continuity over time. This variability reveals a time-scale mismatch that has been overlooked in the ES literature with potential urban policy implications. Despite considerable variation in ES addressed across the plans, there is a striking similar pattern in the total numbers of ES addressed over time in both cities. Plans for both cities showed a spike in the late 60s/early 70s, followed by a significant decline in the late 70s/early 80s with the highest number of ES addressed in the most recent plans. Furthermore, our analysis shows that strategic spatial plans generally demonstrate awareness that urban populations are dependent on ecosystems and this framing is an important part of the policy discourse. While specific monetary values were not placed on any ES in the plans, resolution of land-use conflicts requiring tradeoffs between ES and equity of distribution of ES is a central feature of most of the examined plans. We argue that longitudinal policy document analysis represents a useful complement to any attempt to improve understanding of the implications of and opportunities for operationalizing an ES approach in urban practice

Despite considerable expansion in the scope and function of the state with respect to environmental protection, the world’s biological diversity and ecosystem services continue to deteriorate. Finding ways to better govern human-nature relations in cities is an important part of addressing this decline. The aim of this thesis is to explore the potential of social-ecological resilience to inform urban governance in theory and practice, through a focus on strategic spatial planning. Resilience has become an increasingly important urban policy discourse and much hope is placed in its potential to improve urban governance. However, there is an acknowledged gap between social-ecological resilience as an ideal and the ability to govern towards it in practice. At the time this doctoral research commenced there had been no engagement with social-ecological resilience in the planning theory literature and minimal engagement by empirical planning research. It is to this gap the thesis contributes. Social-ecological resilience scholarship is found to offer planning theory a partly new way of understanding complex human-nature relations. This is relevant to calls by planning theorists for more attention to matters of substance, including ecological processes. With respect to practice, planners see potential for social-ecological resilience to critically inform strategic spatial planning, including through the framing of problems, tools for analysis/synthesis and governance options. There are also however, lessons for social-ecological resilience scholarship that emerge from the detailed empirical research which suggests that attention to the politics of the everyday activities of administrators, elected officials, planning officials, conservationists and citizens operating within the so-called ‘mangle of practice’ is critical to explaining the gap between the ideal of governing for urban resilience, and what happens in practice.

With its origins in systems ecology and emerging interest in the inter-disciplinary examination of the governance of linked social-ecological systems, social-ecological resilience offers a field of scholarship of particular relevance for planning at a time when global ecological challenges require urgent attention. This article explores what new conceptual ground social-ecological resilience offers planning theory. I argue that at a time when planning theorists are calling for more attention to matters of substance alongside matters of process, social-ecological resilience provides a timely contribution, particularly given the minimal attention in planning theory scholarship to environmental and ecological considerations as a driving concern.