The Purpose of this study was to examine what knowledge and which attitudes there are about environmental friendly food in the society. To do so an essay were constructed and distributed to five different working places. Altogether there were 50 essays distributed and 43 were returned. The main result; the respondents think that it is important for people to learn how to consume food in a more environmentally friendly way. The majority of the respondents recognized the eco-label KRAV but the European eco-label and Demeter were not recognized in a less extent.

Water constructions - as a design element in public spaces is the title of this Master thesis, with a focus on waters function and meaning in the urban environment. By way of introduction, mans relationship to places is described and the factors that contribute to the reality that we prefer some places more than others. A good place to stay is open but well defined, gives protection, offers a good view and is varying in topography and vegetation, together with contents of single landscape elements like visible water. This study then continues to discuss mans relationship to water and its means for our wellbeing. Despite the fact that people have a different relations to water due to personality, background and age, it?s an element that raises positive feelings, interest and aesthetic pleasure for most people.

Pets like dogs and cats have a considerable importance for humans and research demonstrate a variety of positive economic and social effects in society due to our pet companions. The presences of pets are increasing on a global scale with correlation to economic development in low- and middle income countries. For example dogs have doubled in India over a five year period. The feed industry for dogs and cats is also the fastest growing sector in the food industry and certain pets have a significant animal protein intake which, depending on the choice of resources may provide a high ecological footprint. Examples of environmental effects with distribution and manufacturing of pet food are increased greenhouse gas emissions, waste, use of water and energy.

The access to good sanitary facilities is an important factor that elevates the experienced living standard as it improves hygiene and reduces the transmission of deseases. The ratification of the millennium goals by 189 countries demonstrates that this is an important international issue. Together the countries have taken upon themselves that the proportion of the population that lacked access to sustainable safe drinking water and sanitary facilities in the year 2000 will have been reduced by half by the year 2015. In Peru, the construction of sewage pipe networks to transport the sewage out of the direct human environment is progressing. The safety and sustainability of these systems can be questioned, since in Peru the sewage seldom receive any treatment before being emitted to a recipient. This is taking place in Picota and sorrunding villages as well. In the last 25 years several systems implementing small-scale onsite treatment have been introduced throughout Latin America in an attempt to give more people access to sustainable and safe sanitary facilities, reducing water consumption and taking advantage of the agricultural values of the sewage fractions while protecting the environment from its negative impact. In this study three different sanitary systems and the effects of different population growths were compared.

This study describes what impact activity within Wifstas, Matfors,Grönstas and Nolbys water protection areas have on the quality of the drinkingwater. It considers the use of the area, environmentally dangerous activitiesin the past and present, the geology?s part, what harm hydroelectric power damsmay cause if they break and how climate change might affect the area in thefuture. It also takes into consideration activities outside the waterprotection areas which might have a suspected impact on the water quality. Theresults of the study are that pollution from infrastructure such as roads, orwastewater from treatment plants may cause occasional contamination of thedrinking water, foremost due to flooding.

The thick shelled river mussel (Unio crassus) has a fragmented distribution in southern Sweden. It is a threatened and protected species. In both the Swedish red list and the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species Unio crassus is classified as Endangered (EN). Causes for this classification are for instance differentiated bottom substrate and deterioration in water quality. In this study, habitat preferences of Unio crassus were investigated to assist in future restoration work.

To reach an Ecological Sustainable Development, Sweden has established environmental quality objectives. Green spaces are attractive for exploitation and in Sweden the access to large jointly green spaces has decreased, which has impact on humans recreation and the biodiversity. The economic aspect has great impact on the planning process which gives indications that the environmental objective may collide with other sector goals within the municipality. The thesis overall aim is to see how the management by objectives for the green spaces implements and how the green spaces is handled in the planning process in a specific case. The thesis builds on a content analysis, strategic interviews and a case study.

In some coastal areas in Sweden water shortage sometimes appears because the withdrawal of groundwater is greater than the groundwater recharge. It creates a situation where the available groundwater is insufficient to support residents and businesses with drinking water. The high withdrawal of groundwater also creates a risk for saltwater intrusion to drinking water wells. The problem most commonly occurs during the summer when the groundwater recharge is low, but the population is high, due to tourism and summer residents.The purpose of this study was to investigate how local water supply in areas affected by water shortage can be solved as sustainable as possible. The work was divided into three parts where the first part comprised of a literature review on water systems in which four different options were investigated: artificial groundwater recharge, rainwater harvesting, desalination and water reuse.

The European Union is struggling to maintain democracy and tries to increase the participation among the citizens in Europe. The European Citizens? Initiative, ECI, is a platform established by the European Commission to allow citizens to propose new legislation. ?Water and sanitation are a human right! Water is a public good, not a commodity!? is the first ECI that has met the requirements.

The possibility for plants to utilize phosphorus in soil is a prerequisite for conducting agricultural production, both small scale and professional. Spreading of phosphorus fertilizers and manure is therefore seen as a necessity in today's agriculture in order to achieve high yield. Manure management, livestock farming and manure storage could contribute to the eutrophication of lakes and rivers. For instance, when the ground becomes saturated, phosphorus leakage could be seen in surface runoff or in point sources resulting from inadequate manure storage management.In the municipality of Växjö there is still many bodies of water that do not reach the Swedish environmental water quality standard of "good ecological status". This thesis has therefore analyzed the manure management and storage on agricultural farms which may have contributed to eutrophication in the municipality.The method for this thesis was a literature study, a questionnaire survey with 820 receivers and a summary of issued inspection reports from 2013.The results highlight the ways in which agriculture may have contributed to the eutrophication of lakes and streams in the municipality of Växjö.

This study is focused on small scale water and wastewater handling in Sweden. The study is divided into two major parts; the first describes common methods for water- and wastewater handling and the second part is a case study on three small and expensive systems in Gällivare municipality, in the north of Sweden. In the case study, abilitys for the local government to hand over unwanted systems to the water users is investigated and found to be a plausible solution to cut costs for two out of the three studied systems. In the third case, water and wastewater systems is not recommended to be handed over but other ways of cutting costs are suggested..

Human existence and welfare depend on functional ecosystems. Ecosystems are critical to sustain life-support services for human well-being. One method that visualizes that humanity requires ecosystem services for resource consumption and assimilation of produced waste is ecological footprints. This study focuses on the ecosystem service carbon sequestering. A quantification of this ecosystem service showed the potential for accumulation of carbon in different ecosystems in Stockholm and Norrbotten County for the years of 1995 and 2004.

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.

Periods of hypoxia are a recurring issue in Brunnsviken. Main factors that trigger hypoxia in Brunnsviken are eutrophication  due to anthropogenic emission of nutrients, stratification in the water column due to salinity and temperature differences  that prevents mixing and a sill inlet that prevents water exchange. As an attempt to improve the oxygen levels, bottom water is pumped from Brunnsviken causing aerated surface water to flow back into the basin.  The objective of this Master?s thesis was to study the change in dissolved oxygen levels due to pumping.

Sustainable development and sustainability is nowadays expected to be integratedin modern city planning and permeate the entire planning process. At the sametime, sustainable development has an inherent vagueness, leading to a greatdiversity of interpretations of the meaning of this concept. In this thesis strongsustainability and ecological modernization are used as two different interpretationsof sustainable development. Using these two interpretations, an analysis of thecurrent use of the concept of sustainability within the city planning of Malmö isperformed. The analysis shows that the interpretation of sustainable development inthe city of Malmö can be deduced to ecological modernization and thatsustainability is looked upon as one way to improve the attractiveness of the city.Investments to increase ecological and social sustainability must be legitimized asleading to a potential increase in economical sustainability (growth) and the focusof increasing the sustainability in the city has shifted from ecological aspects toeconomical aspects.