The role of scientific environmental knowledge in decision-making in the City of Helsinki, Finland

The effect ecological information has on the decision-making process, largely in connection with traffic planning and land use in the City of Helsinki and its metropolitan area, is evaluated on the basis of some examples of projects. In Finland, significant changes in the environmental legislation have had a positive effect on the decision-making process from the environmental point of view. Planning of the new housing area in Viikki was a positive example in this respect. Even though real alternative assessments in the spirit of EIA principles were not possible to realise, the planners were able to offer alternatives that were based on ecological and other sectors of environmental research that resulted in partly preserving the most valued parts of the landscape and nature for the future. On the other hand, in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area traffic plan the ecological facts played a minor role in decision-making despite a significant amount of various kinds of research, reports and carefully applied EIA principles in the evaluation process of various alternatives. To control the process of building density and to minimise the loss of diversity of the surrounding nature is, from an ecological viewpoint, the greatest challenge to the city planners. This will demand from the researchers up-to-date and reliable information on the current state of the city's natural areas and an effective system to convey the data to the city planners.