Environmental compensation in Swedish road planning.

Environmental compensation has been discussed in Europe for a long time and in the Swedish context for almost a decade, but it was not until the latest environmental legislation came into force in 1999 that it became easier to formally require compensation for loss of environmental value. The use of compensation can be one method in trying to reach a more sustainable development. The work with EIA for roads ensures that avoidance of damage to nature is given serious attention. Still, impacts that could require compensation measures will remain. This paper examines 15 planned Swedish state road projects in order to investigate the intended use of environmental compensation. The analysis serves to point out problems and opportunities for improvement to facilitate the use of compensation. The results show that while environmental compensation is proposed in several projects, measures are seldom explicitly documented or interpreted as compensation measures. The planning process also needs to be better coordinated. The most explicitly described environmental compensation in the Swedish projects is connected to water issues, while compensation for impacts in small biotopes is rare. The proposed measures are almost never in sufficient proportion to the damage that is caused. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]