Uranium (U) is a naturally occurring component in bedrock and under the "right" conditions it can dissolve and move into the Ground water. Since many people in Sweden depend on drilled wells as their main drinking water supply, they may be exposed to the uranium in the water. Radioactive radiation is not the major concern associated with naturally occurring uranium. It is rather the chemical properties of uranium that make it a potential danger to human health. Uranium is proven to have toxic effects with respect to the functioning of the kidneys.

Ground work like blasting, piling and excavation has always had a great influence during the planning phase of a construction project since it can cause damages on adjacent buildings and have severe economic consequences. This thesis deals with how vibrations caused by ground work influence near-by buildings and what methods geotechnicians and construction entrepreneurs use to handle these risks.The purpose of this thesis is to explain risk management in relation to ground work. In order to achieve this I have used a qualitative method by interviewing a geotechnician and a ground work contractor who possess knowledge and experience useful to this thesis. The result shows that vibrations from ground work spread through the ground as seismic waves that cause displacements and packing in the ground visible in adjacent buildings as cracks and subsidence damages. Geotechnicians study ground work vibrations by means of ground investigations and experience from previous projects in order to produce a risk analysis that entrepreneurs can use to reduce damages.

 This degree project aims at developing a concept for how to use solar energy to pump up water. The target audience is people living in areas where the functioning of the electricity and water network is absent. In these areas, the hand-powered water pump is the most common technology. The degree project's goal is to find an economically viable alternative to the time consuming hand-powered water pumps. The power comes from solar energy.

To plan and build a garden in Dubai has other conditions and challenges than what you experience in Sweden. The heat, wind and lack of water makes the need for durable plants, a good design and landscaping important if you want to have the opportunity to use your garden during most of the year. The soil is poor of nutrients, alkaline and sometimes saline, witch makes supplying the soil with organic material and various fertilizers necessary if you want to be able to plant a bigger range of plant material in your garden. Another important part is to provide your garden with a good irrigation system that should be put into the ground before planting so that the plants are given a more even irrigation. It?s relatively green scenery you meet and to me it?s in a way surprising since the country with its climate is rather harsh for the purpose of supporting plant life.

The objective of this report was to analyse and compare vulnerability and preparation in Swedish municipal drinking water production, in case the commonly used water sources were inoperative. Methods used were a questionnaire and a less extensive study of regulations for water protection areas. The questionnaire was answered by 41 Swedish municipalities. A handful of them were companies co-owned by a few municipalities. Only one out of four municipalities had source protection areas to all their water sources and for many sources the protection was not satisfactory.

Water is our most important provision and its quality is above all dependent on the geological conditions in the area from where it is extracted. Due to geological properties there are certain areas with an elevated risk of high uranium levels in the Ground water, which in turn constitutes a risk for human health. Consumption of water that contains a high concentration of uranium implies a health risk due to the chemical characteristics of uranium. Livsmedelsverket (The National Food Administration) and Socialstyrelsen (The National Board of Health and Welfare) therefore recommend that precautionary measures should be taken when the uranium concentration in ground water exceeds 15 micrograms per litre. In particular, drinking water collected from wells in areas with uranium-rich bedrock may have a harmfully high level of uranium. One of the wells of the Ärla water purification plant, located near Eskilstuna, Sweden, contains water that exceeds the guideline of 15 micrograms per litre. One interesting technique for removing uranium from drinking water is adsorption to reactive filter materials.

Ground construction has to a large extent been dominated by traditional meth-ods during the last 50 years. Although the construction has been changed meanwhile innovations are not accepted. In collaboration with NCC Ltd Region South, I have examined a modern con-struction methodology that has been developed by NCC for future large pro-jects. The method is divided into two central phases. Phase 1 is? Single Pro-duction? which is a preliminary period for ground constructions to come.

This project is focusing on a future park that will surround Hyllie water tower in the outskirts of Malmö. The water tower will be located in the central part of the new building area Hyllievång. The park will function as a town park with a special focus on water. The water council of the municipality, Va-verket, has for the last 7 years built up and been in charge for a pedagogical programme in the water tower, were schoolchildren come to learn about the cycle of water and how we use water in our daily life. In the park they want to build a new part that gives experience of water, as a compliment to the information in the tower. What will that park look like, and what shall it be constructed of? How do you bring water to the surface in a park? How can landscape architecture work to enhance the presence of water and make people more interested in water issues? In the search to find the answers to all my questions I have meet with people, read books and visited different places.

When establishing a groundwater protection area it is of great interest to be able to estimate the transit time of the groundwater from different places of the aquifer to the withdrawal well. These estimates can be uncertain due to heterogeneities in the aquifer. As a part of the work to develop methods for a more certain delineation of protection areas, a tracer test was performed in an esker located 25 kilometres NW of the town Uppsala.The purpose of this master thesis was to perform, describe and evaluate the tracer test. Travel times from the tracer test should then enable comparison against stochastic simulated travel times of the groundwater in the area.Three dyes (rhodamine WT, uranine and naphtionate) and a salt (NaBr) were used in the tracer test. The tracers were injected in four different wells located 25 meters from a pumping well.

In this thesis, I have discussed which (herbacious) perennials that are sold most in the county of Norrbotten in the upper north of Sweden. Also discussed are the factors considering overwintering and factors that affect the chances of survival. The reason to the subject is that I m born and raised in Norrbotten and throughout the years I ve wondered why so many of the perennial flowerbeds look so similar. The purpose of the thesis is to give another approach to the composition of the garden by explaining some of the factors that controls the survival of plants. The information is gathered partly through interviews with plantshop personnel and partly by a literature study. The results of the interviews reveal that tradition and hardiness is the major reasons to the consumer s choice.

A study has been performed that investigates the variation of iron content in groundwater.The study was initiated by Midvatten AB, which noticed that the iron content in groundwater samples can vary greatly over small distances. The purpose of this study was to geochemically and geohydrologically determine the factors that influence the content of iron and manganese in groundwater from a selection of eskers in Dalarna, and determine how to best sample groundwater with the method used by Midvatten AB. An evaluation was made of how the vertical variation in soil material, water composition, pumping time and pipe material affects the content of iron in groundwater. Piper diagrams were used to study the relationship between the chemical composition of the groundwater and the content of iron and manganese in groundwater samples from the studied areas. The groundwater from the studied areas was then classified in the Piper diagrams, according to the content of the major ions.

The depth-to-water-index (DTW-index) is derived from digital elevation models (DEM) to map soil wetness, in terms of distance from soil surface to the Ground water table. The aim of this GIS based study was to investigate the existence of a relationship between DTW-index and forest site productivity (SP). The belief of such an assumed relationship was based on knowledge that the Ground water level is related to site properties that can either promote or impede tree growth. Data primarily comprised rasters of the Krycklan catchment in northern Sweden and depicted DTW-index and a laser scanned vegetation height. The 100th height percentile of each pixel in the vegetation raster was assumed to mirror the top-height, letting it act as a relative measure of SP within a delineated area of equal stand age.

The energy use in a workshop company has been examined in this work in order to find areas for energy efficiency improvement. The combined oil and electricity heating in the company were compared with other alternative heating systems including cooling of the premises in following combinations:Ground source heat pump for heating and coolingDistrict heating and absorption coolingDistrict heating and low temperate surface water coolingEnergy use, operation costs and carbon dioxide emissions were calculated for the current heating systems and the three alternatives including cooling. The ground source heat pump for heating and cooling decreases bought energy with 34 MWh annually compared to current heating only. The district heating and low temperate surface water cooling has the largest reduction of operation cost and carbon dioxide. The operation cost decreases with 42 kSEK and the carbon dioxide with 43 metric ton CO2 annually.

The purpose of this study was to examine whether an inventory of the vegetation overgrowth could be used to indicate a locally nutritional impact. The study was conducted at Märstaån where the water runs through a number of agricultural lands that could lead to an increased amount of diffuse emissions of nutrients. The vegetation overgrowth in the water was also studied in relation to shade, meandering and water flow effects on the vegetation. With this method, no definitive conclusions could be drawn.Where the water was shaded, no vegetation overgrowth could be found. Therefor trees should be planted to prevent any future overgrowths.

Swedish energy policy aims to increase the use of energy from renewable sources and this should be done in a safe, environmentally and sustainable manner. According to the Energy Agency the use bio-fuel increased by 73% between 1990 - 2006. Stands with high share of slash are often located on areas with high productivity which often are located on soils with poor bearing capacity. This will increase traffic on susceptible soil leading to increased ground damage. To reduce the risk of ground damage at slash-forwarding, ground protection is needed.