Att navigera mot ett hållbart idrotts- och friluftsliv

Mistra Sport & Outdoors är ett forsknings- och samverkansprogram kring idrott, friluftsliv och miljö. Forskningen arbetar nära myndigheter, organisationer och företag inom idrott och friluftsliv för att särskilt utveckla ny kunskap och lösningar för en hållbar utveckling. Det finns ett stort antal partners som deltar i projektet och säkerställer på så sätt bibehållen samhällsrelevans och möjligheter till implementering. Finansiär för den fyraåriga satsningen är Stiftelsen för miljöstrategisk forskning, Mistra. Mistra Sport & Outdoors har som mål att bidra till att Sverige når Agenda 2030-målen för en hållbar utveckling.

I denna skrift har vi samlat texter om hur vi kan planera för ökad hållbarhet kopplat till idrotts- och friluftsaktiviteter; dels när det kommer till resande och tillgänglighet, samt dels när det kommer till mark- och vattenanvändning. Det är bidrag från två av temana inom Mistra Sport & Outdoors som utgör innehållet i skriften; Hållbara transportlösningar samt Hållbar användning av mark och vatten.

I skriften presenteras ett urval av texter som beskriver utmaningar, metoder och angreppssätt och här ges exempel vilka syftar till att fungera som inspiration för olika aktörer. Inriktningen i texterna avgränsas till frågor som relaterar till fysisk planering, att skapa tillgänglighet till platser för sport och friluftsaktiviteter, att främja ett hållbart resande samt att minska miljöbelastningen. För den som vill läsa mer och fördjupa sig presenteras lästips i anslutning till respektive text. De medverkande författarna presenteras samlat med en kort beskrivning i slutet av skriften.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant changes in day-to-day mobility patterns. Much research has revealed the socioeconomic disparities in travel behavior during the pandemic, focusing on the differences between different socioeconomic groups. By contrast, relatively little research has been done to explore the potentially different responses to the pandemic even within the same socioeconomic group. Based on data collected from a map-based online survey conducted in Sweden from 2020 to 2021, we applied multivariate clustering to identify distinct types of travel behavior for people with different income levels and from different geographic areas in the City of Stockholm. Our results show that seven distinct clusters can be identified by simultaneously taking into account income, accessibility, and travel distance. These distinct clusters may speak of distinct modes of living during the pandemic. By acknowledging and recognizing the heterogeneity within the high-income or low-income population group, this study provides more angles and adds more depth to discussions of equal and resilient cities.

The location of sports facilities impacts on the possibilities for citizens to join and be active in sports activities; many of the trips that sports activities generate every day use unsustainable modes of transportation. As such, ensuring accessibility to sports and recreation activities presents increasing challenges in relation to both negative climate effects and urban inequalities. This paper studies the location of, and accessibility to, sports facilities, analysing the catchment area of facilities from a socioeconomic perspective in order to advance knowledge on sustainable and equal accessibility. 

A set of methods is tested with the aim of increasing our understanding of the relation between access to sports facilities and municipal goals regarding climate and inequality. The results show that the city of Uppsala in Sweden affords unequal accessibility to sports facilities as a result of their location in the urban context and a result of the design of the street network, of public space. The results provide key insights regarding how urban planning and accessibility relate to the possibilities of practicing a sport and potentially reaching sports locations using sustainable modes of transportation. The analysis further illustrates that the conditions for introducing sustainable travel modes vary in relation to different sports, a finding which calls for the development of analytical analyses and adapted strategies that can take local and specific conditions into account, rather than uniform and normative approaches.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, physical distancing, mobility restrictions and self-isolation measures were implemented around the world as the primary intervention to prevent the virus from spreading. Urban life has undergone sweeping changes, with people using spaces in new ways. Stockholm is a particularly relevant case of this phenomenon since most facilities, such as day care centres and schools, have remained open, in contrast to cities with a broader lockdown. In this study, we use Twitter data and an online map survey to study how COVID-19 restrictions have impacted the use of different locations, services and amenities in Stockholm. First, we compare the spatial distribution of 87,000 geolocated tweets pre-COVID-19 and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Second, we analyse 895 survey responses asking people to identify places they ‘still visit’, ‘use more’, ‘avoid’ and self-report reasons for using locations. The survey provides a nuanced understanding of whether and how restrictions have affected people. Service and seclusion were found to be important; therefore, the accessibility of such amenities was analysed, demonstrating how changes in urban habits are related to conditions of the local environment. We find how different parts of the city show different capacities to accommodate new habits and mitigate the effects of restrictions on people’s use of urban spaces. In addition to the immediate relevance to COVID-19, this paper thus contributes to understanding how restrictions on movement and gathering, in any situation, expose more profound urban challenges related to segregation and social inequality.

The village of Duved in northern Sweden faces rapid transformation related to the tourismindustry, including new housing and recreational facilities in the mountains. Existing placeswith inherent social values that play a key role in supporting local identity are threatenedas they are not sufficiently recognised or protected by the planning process. This studyfocuses on how significant places with social values, and the system of such places thatform a social infrastructure, may be identified and recognised through a multi-perspectiveapproach including a creative mapping process. Information from different stakeholdersabout places with social values is documented and analysed. The approach includesthree different perspectives on places affording social values: planning documents, theofficials’ perspective and the citizens’ perspective. The mapping method makes intangibleknowledge visible and reveals the multifunctionality of places, and the map constitutesthe medium for such a process. It can contribute to developing democratic planningprocesses that support the empowerment of the population and help professionals tointegrate knowledge about social value into plans, thus preserving fragile but essentialqualities through future development.

Modeling spaces and their relationships is at the core of syntactic analysis, including reach analysis. In a syntactic model, two spaces can be described as close together or far apart based on the directional distance between them. In this study, we compare three different ways of measuring directional distance—namely, by number of steps, by number of direction changes, and by angular deviation—in the context of accessibility and reach analysis. By graphically showing how choosing a different way of measuring directional distance can result in a different reach or accessibility pattern, we provide an intuitive understanding of the different natures of the syntactic measures. By demonstrating how the modeling conventions and the geometric composition of lines at a local scale can have a huge impact on the results of syntactic analysis at a larger scale, we call for more attention to the conventions and principles used for modeling street networks.

Recent empirical research has confirmed the importance of green infrastructure and outdoor recreation to urban people’s well- being during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, only a few studies provide cross-city analyses. We analyse outdoor recreation behaviour across four Nordic cities ranging from metropolitan areas to a middle-sized city. We collected map based survey data from residents (n = 469–4992) in spring 2020 and spatially analyse green infrastructure near mapped outdoor recreation sites and respondents’ places of residence. Our statistical examination reveals how the interplay among access to green infrastructure across cities and at respondents’ residential location, together with respondents’ socio-demographic profiles and lockdown policies or pandemic restrictions, affects outdoor recreation behaviour. The results highlight that for pandemic resilience, the history of Nordic spatial planning is important. To support well-being in exceptional situations as well as in the long term, green infrastructure planning should prioritise nature wedges in and close to cities and support small-scale green infrastructure