A brief description of the project

Wetlands are important to secure clean waters, and to buffer water flows in order to reduce both droughts and floods. The target area for the project, the drainage basin of the Nyköping watercourses, has in recent years suffered from both droughts and floods – problems that will increase as a consequence of ongoing climate change.

Major national investments will be made during 2021-2023 to meet these challenges. Landowners and other relevant actors have, however, made significant investments in current land use practices over long periods of time, and are therefore entangled in economic-, social- and cognitive structures and processes that limit any significant changes in land use practices from being adopted.

The project aims to investigate how to effectively reach out with new information, and how to build consensus, engagement, and a deeper and broader systems understanding among all relevant actors. Further, how this can contribute to the implementation of effective measures, undertaken at all levels, aiming to restore and create wetland areas.

Through participatory work involving relevant actors, the project will develop empirically grounded knowledge on how to effectively disseminate information and build new knowledge, and how this could contribute to a self-reinforcing process of change. These insights will provide forthcoming projects with the abilities needed to succeed in significantly increase the area of wetlands in the drainage basin and beyond.