It is sixty years since Sweden's first star-shaped housing estate was built in Gröndal, a suburb of Stockholm. Olle Engkvist, the building contractor, was the driving force behind the residential area and it was designed by architects Sven Backström and Leif Reinius. The estate comprises detached star-shaped houses suited to a more hilly terrain and terraced star-shaped houses on the flat land. The eight gardens of the terraced houses form the shape of a hexagon. It is these gardens, designed by Sven Hermelin and Per Friberg, which are the main focus of this thesis. The buildings on the estate have recently been renovated and it is now time for the gardens to be restored.

A lot of habitats have declined or disappeared as the old cultural landscape changed to the modern agricultural landscape of today. Places such as power line corridors, racing tracks, gravel pits and military training sites have become refuges for many species associated with the old cultural landscape. These sites have been exposed to ecological disturbances that create the same type of habitats that were found in the old cultural landscape.The military training sites in Sweden has an impressive diversity of species. Disturbances from the military exercises have created habitats that are important for a wide range of species.The purpose of this thesis is to study some of the ecological disturbances occurring in the military training sites of the Swedish Armed Forces and examine how they affect different types of habitats. The thesis explains through litterateur and field studies the reason to the rich biodiversity often found at military training sites.

Nature-like plantations are areas that, by today?s maintenance procedure usually gains low prioritiy and are forgotten. Most nature-like plantations are currently disadvantaged and have in many cases grown up and formed dense,impenetrable and brushwoody green volumes. These green volumes is rarely used, but usually only fills out gap surfaces. With proper care nature-like plantations can become health promoting environments in the increasinglyhardened urban environments.How vegetation systems work and how trees and shrubs interact is dependent on many factors.

Detta arbete har undersökt skillnaderna mellan den nuvarande skogsvårdslagen och den föregående. Undersökningen har bestått av två delar, där ena delen är en litteraturstudie av lagarna och den andra är en fältstudie av metoder för att mäta naturhänsynsförändring. Som komplement till fältstudien har en litteraturstudie av undersökningsparametranas naturvårdsnytta. Litteraturstudien av lagarna gick till på följande sätt, inledningen av båda lagarna och hänsynsparagraferna har lästs och jämförts. Fältstudie har gjorts efter metoder som har arbetats fram och sedan testats i fält.

Is it possible that by planning in a more sustainable way when building a new area, we can improve our environment?Most environmental problems are created in cities and therefore they should hold the solution. Through a more ecological urban planning a better foundation for sustainable housing could be created.This report follows the process in coming up with a proposal for a master plan for an area in Odense, Denmark. By going through principles for sustainable urban planning made by different organizations and persons and from these extract main principles, a background is founded to continue the proposal from.Denmark works a lot on expanding their green areas, maintain the existing ones and recreate what?s being destroyed as cities expand.

The main purpose with this study was to investigate whether the tree growth differs or not in prescribed burnt areas compared to mechanically scarified. Together with the result from the main purpose, answers of whether it's possible or not to combine nature conservation with tree production in prescribed burnt areas was presented. In these areas the regeneration were analyzed to see if there was enough tree plants to comply with the Swedish Forestry Act regulations terms for approved regeneration. A field survey was conducted at 6 objects, three objects for prescribed burning and three for mechanically scarification. All objects were planted within the same year.

The countries in the European Union have agreed to increase their percentage renewable energy sources to 20 %. To reach this goal an increase of biomass production needs to be made. One way of achieving this is by using nonnative species. Poplar in Sweden produces biomass faster than the domestic trees. In the southern parts of Sweden plantations has been made with good results. In the northern parts survival is a problem that needs to be solved before plantations can be made for commercial use.

The Swedish forestry aims primarily maximize production and economical wins. However, especially urban forests have great qualities as space for recreation and children?s play, which means that other goals should lead the forests management. The Teleborg forest is a wooded area in Växjö, surrounded by urban dwellings, schools, nurseries etc. A great part of the forest was wind felled during the storm Gudrun in 2005 which changed the forest, earlier dominated by spruce, dramatically.

The Swedish forest have about 100 000 km of watercourses and it?s an important structure in Swedish landscapes and catchments. In some of the watercourses lives spieces like the freshwater pearl mussel (Margaritifera margaritifera) and brown trout (Salmo trutta) which both are sensitive for inteference from the forestry. The new EU water framework directive has a goal that all surface water will have high or good ecological- and good chemical status at latest by the 22nd December of 2015. The study has been made in the catchment of Håltjärnsbäcken and it is from a national perspective one of the most valuable streams in Sweden and which also have been included in a LIFE-project. The catchment is situated within the Eco-park of Malingsbo-Kloten and managed by Sveaskog AB.

This work consists of two studies. One is based on an inquiery to nurseries with production of woody plants, and the other on visits to gardencenters, primarily in Skåne but also in Stockholm. Inquieries where sent to 87 nurseries, 48 of them replied. The purpous of the inquiery was to make a thorough investigation of the ligneous production at the Swedish nurseries, what is produced and in what quantities. Within the inquiery was also a thorough look at the fruit tree production. This to be able to conclude what cultivars that are produced and how large part of that production that is certified according to the Swedish Board of Agriculture (SJV).

The result of this work is a plan for the development of an 1128 m2 elderly raised garden. The purpose has been to create an overall plan covering the long-term development of the garden. The work process has covered a description of the garden of today, review of requirements, analysis of the garden sections, design of a new plan as well as starting the construction of the new garden. The plan covers a time period of a couple of years to create the new garden since the construction work is carried out during spare time with small resources available. The planning must contain review of functions such as protection from insight, eating area and compost area. Also the esthetic expression must be planned. Colors, shapes, choice of material and plants together make up the esthetic expression. It is recommended to include anything you wish to create in the garden. In a raised garden one has to overcome the step to remove trees and shrubs and think different.

Abstract:Perennials in public areas have during the latest decades been more and more popular. This group of plants has become a more accepted komponent when creating pleasant public places, and people begin to see the functional aspects. Perennials do also give a colour- and senceexperience in a more detailed way than can be achieved with only trees and shrubs. One of the ojects of this essay is to give more examples of motives for using perennials in urban areas.Having in mind the increasing use of perennials, you can expect a growing need for better understading of how to create successfull perennial plantings. In spite of the increasing interest it is hard to find any written information in this subject.

The global wood pellet market has seen a rapid growth after the adoption of the Kyoto protocol and the renewable energy incentives created within the European Union. The global consumption of wood pellets reached 13,5 million tonnes in 2010 and several experts estimate the consumption to be between 35-50 million tonnes by 2020. These forescasts raise the questions which regions that can supply this vast amount of wood pellets and what the conditions are for producing it. This study evaluates the conditions for wood pellet production and export from British Columbia, on Canada?s west coast, focusing on existing industry structure, raw material supply and the distribution chain.

Smallholder farmers in Uganda suffer from declining productivity. With a rapidly increasing population, marginal land is taken into production and the current land management leads to loss in soil fertility and escalation in soil erosion. There are studies indicating that the use of agroforestry increases soil organic carbon (SOC) compared to systems without trees. Soils which are high in carbon have many advantages, for example better water holding capacity, which can reduce stress on crops during drought. The aim of this study was to determine the effect agroforestry has on SOC concentration in small-holder farming systems in Uganda. The intended system to study was farms practicing agroforestry methods or not in intercropped plantain (cooking banana) fields.

There are two species of voles that cause damage in Swedish fruit production: the water vole (Arvicola terrestris) and the field vole (Microtus agrestis). Both species make the most damage during the winter season. The water vole makes subterranean burrows and cause serious damage by gnawing on the tree roots. The field vole seldom makes burrows and gnaws the bark at the base of the tree trunk. In recent years there have been several reports about increasing vole damage.