In times of increased flooding, enhanced by climate change, polluted stormwater poses an increased threat to the environment through contaminated water entering waterways. Bioretention utilizes natural processes in soil and vegetation to treat pollutants and combat this threat. Biochar produced through pyrolysis, has a high cation exchange capacity (CEC) and could therefore increase treatment in bioretention systems. This research applies a literature review, interview, and a model to explore the benefits and disadvantages of biochar in order to specify a soil-mix through an understanding of the production process and preferred application rate. High purification through CEC, increased water holding capacity, and carbon sequestration being the benefits discussed.

Landfill leachate contains a variety of contaminants and is created when rainwater percolates the landfill. For landfill management the leachate is the main issue that can cause problems to the environment. At the landfill of Fläskebo, Renova AB treats the leachate in a local treatment plant. The treatment consists of a chemical treatment step with chemical precipitation, flocculation, sedimentation and filtration, and a final step with a carbon and peat filter. Renova has to ensure that the condition of the leachate reaches the regulation set for the landfill before it is released to the recipient.

Increased resource efficiency in an energy system could result in large economic and environmental benefits. Tekniska verken i Linköping AB (Tekniska verken) is responsible for the district heating network in Linköping. Their vision is to create the world?s most resource efficient region. An important step towards this vision is more efficient usage of produced heat, something which could be achieved through integration of a seasonal heat storage in the energy system.

South Africa has been among the top ten wine producing countries for at least 20 years. Even though the land under grapevines is decreasing globally it is still increasing in Africa. The awareness of environment has strengthen the last years and South African producers experience a high demand of environmentally friendly produced wine, especially from the European market. This demand was the driving force behind the development of the world unique sustainability certification, Integrated Production of Wine (IPW), which is inscribed in the South African legislation. What makes this certification unique is that consumers can trace their product all the way back to the farming practices owing to the identity number specified on the IPW Integrity & Sustainability seal on certified products.

This paper deals with stable isotope analysis on the children of the early Christian cemetery in Varnhem, Västergötland. Human bone and tooth material from the cemetery has been analysed for stable carbon, nitrogen and sulphur isotopes. The analysis showed that the diet had been homogeneous and that the children had been breastfed, with a possible exception of the child from grave 100..

The rainforests of the world are important not only to the countries in which they grow but to the world as a whole. They influence oxygen and water circulation as well as carbon sequestration which in turn affect global radiation and global warming. The forest also have great value and in Malaysia as in many other tropical countries large volumes are harvested which leaves great areas of degraded forest with little growth and biological diversity. Due to their low financial value these forests are often transformed and used for other purposes than forestry such as oil palm plantations. The trees are often transported out of the forest using large bulldozers. They are heavy which causes compaction of the forest floor and during transport the top soil layers are moved to improve mobility.

Ökad växthuseffekt har länge varit i fokus för dess inverkan på framtida klimat. Det är i huvudsak mänskliga utsläpp som är orsaken till ökade mängder växthusgaser i atmosfären och stora ansträngningar görs för att utsläppen på sikt ska minska. I klimatmodeller beskrivs växthusgasbalansen utifrån både mänsklig och naturlig påverkan. Förståelsen för naturlig påverkan har länge varit begränsad och mer forskning behövs inom området. Flera studier visar på att sötvattensystem (sjöar, vattendrag osv.) avger växthusgaser som koldioxid, CO2 och metan, CH4, i större proportioner än vad som tidigare varit känt.Denna studie syftade till att undersöka CO2 och CH4-flöden från Erssjön i Skogaryd, Västergötland (en typisk svensk skogssjö) och få förståelse för hur den omgivande skogen påverkar såväl flöden som turbulens (utbyteskoefficienter) över sjön.

Detta är ett examensarbete som genomförts hos Göteborg Energi AB och syftar till att utreda omkryogen uppgradering av biogas med fördel kan ske genom att producera nödvändig kyla medvärmedriven absorptionskylmaskin. Göteborg Energi är en av tre parter som tillsammans ska bygga enbiogasanläggning i Lidköping som ska vara i drift 2010. Anläggningen ska producera 30 GWhflytande biogas per år.Arbetet utreder om det är fördelaktigt ur ekonomiskt, energimässigt och miljömässigt perspektiv attuppgradera biogas med kryogen teknik med värmeproducerad kyla. En jämförelse görs först medkryogen teknik där kylan är producerad med el och sen med andra uppgraderingstekniker. Som stödhar två olika processimuleringsprogram används, Hysys och DESIGN II.Resultatet visar att energianvändningen ökar då värmedriven kyla används i jämförelse med kylaproducerad med el.

I denna kandidatuppsats avlägsnas organiska föroreningar från vatten genom användning av textilier, vars yta belagts med nanopartiklar utav ämnet titandioxid. När titandioxid belyses med UV-strålning sker en fotokatalytisk reaktion, vilket i sin tur bryter ned bland annat bakterier och organiska färgämnen. I hopp om att finna ultimat vidhäftning mot textil passande titandioxid har olika typer av beläggningar studerats; akrylbaserade, sol-gel och slutligen en hybrid. Dessutom har fem olika konstruktioner av textila bindningar jämförts i syfte att undersöka dess påverkan på den fotokatalytiska effekten. Förorenade vatten är ett stort problem, både i utvecklingsländer och i industriella sammanhang.

Since the Bruntlandreport was published 1987, companies have shown their environmental commitment through an environmental account. Companies started these accounts because their rivals started having them and today most large companies have a environmental account or sustainable development report. The information given by the companies have been seen as slanted, and others see it only as a part of the image production for the companies. There have been several investigations of the stakeholders of environmental reports and it is not clear who is the primary stakeholder, in other words who actually reads them. All different stakeholders have different views of what an environmental account should encompass.

Abstract The global average temperature has increased by 0,74°C over the last 100 years. Most probably, the explanation is due to increasing use of fossil fuels and the agricultural expansion of land use. The new life stile of mankind leads to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Food consumption contributes with approximately a quarter of the total greenhouse gas emission per person and year, why it is an important task to reduce these. The aim of this work is to quantify energy use and greenhouse gas emissions for (Swedish) herbs produced in Swedish greenhouses. The study is based on a LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) and collected data from participating companies producing herbs in pots.

Composting is a process in which organic matter is mineralized by microorganisms. In January 2005 landfilling of organic waste was prohibited in Sweden. With this prohibition composting has become an important alternative to handle the produced organic wastes. One problem with continuous small-scale composting is the production of organic acids that will inhibit a further composting process. The aim of these theses was to study what effects temperature and dry matter content had on the production of organics acids, and what effect the organic acids had on the mineralisation of the substrate as well as the stability during storage of the product.

The use of fossil fuels such as coal and gas are a contributor to the global warming. The climate change is a worldwide problem with far reaching consequences that is believed to be very expensive. The United Nations has been introducing a framework convention on climate change. One component of the convention is the Kyoto protocol. The protocol is obligating the developed countries to decrease their emissions of greenhouse gases by 5.2 percent during the time period 2008-2012.

The transportation sector is the only sector of the Swedish society that is still increasing the emissions of Carbon dioxide and other green house gases. Diesel fuel represents one of the fuels that contributes to these emissions and the use of diesel fuels is increasing every year. The main purpose of this study was to make an estimation of the current business situation for producers of liquid diesel biofuels in Sweden such as biodiesel, synthetic diesel and crude tall diesel and examine the forces of competition of the industry today and its future prospects. The study revealed that the rivalry among the existing firms was low mainly due to the geographical spread of the companies. Moreover the success of the biodiesel industry was influenced by a long-term guarantee of the tax exempt for biofuels and by the price level of petroleum diesel.

There has always been global warming on earth and it is because of it that the earth is inhabitable. Without global warming the temperature on earth would be around -18 ° C instead of today's + 15 ° C. Global warming is generated by greenhouse gases like Carbon dioxide and methane which trap long wave radiation in the earth's atmosphere. The problem today is that the global concentration of green house gases has significantly increased since the 1750's as a result of human activity. Today's values widely exceed the preindustrial values.