Unlocking Subsurface Potentials: Geosystem Services for More Informed and Sustainable Planning

Soils and subsoils provide essential functions that underpin land uses across agriculture, forestry, nature conservation, and urban development. Much like topsoil, deeper subsurface layers and other geological resources remain largely invisible in planning and design practice, despite their
growing importance for climate adaptation, water management, energy systems, and underground infrastructure. The concept of geosystem services (GS) offers a way to broaden the perspective from surface soils to the full geophysical environment—encompassing soil, subsoil, sediment, and bedrock—and to articulate how these layers collectively support societal needs. GS thereby complements soil-based ecosystem service frameworks by revealing additional regulating, provisioning, and supporting functions that become critical as societies make increasing use of the subsurface.
This contribution synthesises insights from three Swedish applications of GS in municipal planning. In Malmö, GS potentials were mapped using an indicator-based methodology to support climate resilience strategies. The resulting maps visualised potentials for stormwater infiltration and retention, shallow geo-energy use, groundwater regulation, and the availability of subsurface space. Planners found that the GS maps improved communication across disciplines and helped make “hidden” subsurface capacities visible in early decision making.
In Askersund, GS potential mapping was adapted to a rural comprehensive planning context. Five services—stormwater infiltration and retention, groundwater provision, bearing capacity, erosion resistance, and provision of construction material—were evaluated with local planners. The maps were found to be useful overview tools, revealing subsurface opportunities and constraints beyond what conventional soil or land use data captures, but need further refinement to become products that can be used as a standard tool.
In Gothenburg, a checklist of GS informed a comparative assessment of three alternative tunnel corridor reservations by systematically identifying impacts on subsurface resources, risks, and long-term potentials. This demonstrated how applying the concept of GS, even in a very simplistic manner by using checklists and expert assessments, can help avoid unintended trade-offs in large infrastructure projects through early subsurface consideration.
Across the cases, the concept of GS offered a unifying language and practical tools for integrating soil, subsoil, and deeper geological functions and services into spatial planning—supporting more informed land use decisions, and spatial development that avoids shifting problems across areas, generations, or functions.