What could go wrong? Conceptual understanding and exploration of maladaptation in Swedish municipalities

Abstract

Adaptation strategies can backfire and cause maladaptive outcomes, yet this is an understudied area in Swedish adaptation work, and a conceptually challenging theme with potential justice implications. The study explored the potential existence of maladaptation in Swedish municipalities in the Motala ström catchment area in collaboration with the FairWater research project, through conducting 18 qualitative interviews with officials from municipalities and county administrative boards. While almost half of the respondents did not consider negative consequences from adaptation work, cost and spatial trade-offs were the most commonly cited. More traditional maladaptation aspects, such as rebounding vulnerability, shifting vulnerability, increasing emissions, and path dependency were often not equated with ‘negative consequences’ but rather mentioned spontaneously at other points in the interviews. Few overlaps were seen in the respondents’ associations of unsuccessful and unfair adaptation, highlighting a lack of justice considerations in municipal CCA. A wide array of adaptation constraints was highlighted by the participants including governance; budgetary constraints; political will; trade-offs; legal framework; monitoring, evaluating and learning; and complexity. While not all constraints were said to directly lead to maladaptation, they have the potential to do so. With few studies of maladaptation done previously in Sweden, the maladaptation indicators mapped in this study potentially suggest a large hidden number of maladaptation risks. Based on the study’s results, future research could benefit from testing monitoring, evaluation and learning frameworks to avoid maladaptation in a Swedish municipal context and assess if using such frameworks aids decision-making.

Popular Abstract

Can adaptation go wrong? Negative side effects and fairness are not systematically
considered in the studied Swedish municipalities.

Many participants did not see climate change adaptation as something that may result in negative consequences. However, several factors are present in Sweden which might contribute to adverse outcomes.

The need for societies to adapt to climate change impacts is becoming ever more evident. So how do we know if we are doing it right? Even with the best of intentions, it is important to stop and think about what can go wrong. What groups get to benefit from the planned adaptation work? Will some areas be more exposed to climate-related hazards than others? Researchers have suggested the concept of ‘maladaptation’ to explain where adaptation measures backfire, yet few studies on this have been done in Sweden.

It can be especially complex when considering how to work with something that connects geographically distant places, like water. During unusually high water flows, the tricky decision of whose land to flood might have to be taken. If flood barriers are built in one place, the water might flood another area instead. Through interviews with employees from the vast majority of municipalities and two county administrative boards in the Motala ström catchment area, we got insight into how they currently plan and execute their adaptation work. We were especially
interested in what outcomes they imagined for the future, and what perspectives they took into account.

Many good adaptation efforts are being implemented, but roughly 45% did not consider any negative consequences from their adaptation work. There were also few overlaps between what they considered unfair adaptation and unsuccessful adaptation. These results suggest that questions of fairness are not often seen as a natural part of the adaptation work. The results also showed several elements which could contribute to maladaptation in municipal work.
These included:
● Limited budget - money for adaptation is limited even though it can be seen as an
investment in future resilience;
● Political will - local politicians are not prioritising adaptation work unless something happened very recently;
● Trade-offs - the employees have to weigh other municipal interest against adaptation needs;
● Legal framework - current legislation was not made for a world with climate change;
● Learning and evaluation - it is difficult to evaluate if the municipalities’ adaptation work has the intended effects.

So where does this leave us? Overall, the municipalities and county administrative boards interviewed can be considered reasonably representative of Sweden as a whole. The results can therefore highlight a need for municipalities to think about negative side effects and fairness when they plan their adaptation work. Also, the results can shed light on several elements that hinder more successful adaptation to climate change in Sweden. With the impacts for climate change projected to worsen, the study calls for more attention to the topic.

• author: Rublovska, Agate and Bergh, Rebecka
• supervisor: Per Becker
• organization: Division of Risk Management and Societal Safety
• course: VBRM15 20251
• year: 2025
• type: H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
• subject: Earth and Environmental Sciences
• keywords: Climate change, climate change adaptation, maladaptation, Sweden, municipalities
• language: English
• id: 9207760
• date added to LUP: 2025-07-21 08:49:02
• date last changed: 2025-07-21 08:49:02