Wood has always been an important material for people, and it is used for many applications. As for example, fuel for cooking and heating houses, construction materials and for constructing means of transport. Since wood also is a material that with time biologically degrades due to activity by micro organisms and wood fungi it is important to find ways to protect and further lengthen the life span of the material when in service. One method is to decrease the amount of water in the material by impregnation with an hydrophobic oil. The Linotech method which uses only pure linseed oil is one such possible method. The aim of this study was to investigate the possibility to at the same time impregnate and stain/colour wood samples of pine and spruce by using the Linotech method.

Few rectory gardens are today remaining in their former design and the cultural heritage that they represent are disappearing. Since 1987-88 the parishes are no longer bound to keep housing for their priests, which means that they, for economical reasons, are starting to sell their rectories. With this in mind, a group of people, growing up in rectories in Småland and Öland between the 1930th and 1950th, formed an interest group to save the memory of their rectory gardens. On the basis of their memories, they have written a couple of descriptions of the rectories, which describe the gardens content, design and the life they once lived there. With this compilation of the 14 rectory gardens I want to keep the memory of them and create a ground for future work in this field. Historically the rectory gardens played an important roll as patterns and examples in the countryside.

During the 20th century a significant proportion (about 15 %) of the peat-covered wetlands in Sweden were drained to improve forest productivity. Area wise, most of the forest drainage was done in northern Sweden, but relatively speaking a larger part of the wetlands have been drained in the southern parts of the country. Most often, the forest drainage resulted in increased forest growth, but failures were not unusual, and harmful effects, e.g. on species richness, have been a common cause for draining. Ditch cleaning is necessary for maintaining the ditches in good condition.

Sub Saharan Africa has during the last decade become the world?s fastest urbanizing region. This change is concentrated to a few metropolitan areas one of them being Dar es Salaam, the largest city of Tanzania. Since the 1960s Dar es Salaam has grown from being a relatively small coastal city of approximately 300 000 people to become a bustling urban centre of four million inhabitants. This development has had a major impact on the city structure, which in turn has affected people?s welfare and the surrounding environment. One such consequence is the detrimental loss of urban vegetation and open areas in the city.

The cattle production in the world has been questioned in Sweden due to its negative impacts on the environment. The use of imported soya bean meal as a protein feed for Swedish cattle results in the cutting of rainforest and an extensive use of pesticides in the countries were the soya beans are produced. As a consequence, the environmental impacts caused by cattle production increases. A production of protein feeds in Sweden would decrease the transportations and the cutting of rainforest. For organic beef producers the possibility to produce home-grown protein feeds is important since organic protein feeds can be difficult to obtain in another way.

Populärvetenskaplig sammanfattning: Kvävebelastningen på sjöar och hav har ökat markant de senaste tiotal åren. Jordbruket stårför ca 50 % av de svenska kväveutsläppen som människan bidrar till. En ökadkvävebelastning på haven kan leda till övergödning, vilket får en stor negativ effekt påvattenekosystemen. Ett sätt att minska övergödningsproblematiken är att öka vattnetsuppehållstid i landskapet genom att anlägga nya eller restaurera gamla våtmarker ijordbruksintensiva områden som t ex. Halland och Skåne.

In this Master thesis an effective method is presented to find out what is requested in a forest or outdoor recreation. The aim with the study is to find out how Sveaskog can increase the general interest for experiences in nature and improve the access for recreation. Some questions that have been used to answer this purpose are: Who is visiting/not visiting the recreation area? How is it possible to increase the number of visits? The study is carried out in Kilsbergen and mainly centered around Ånnaboda, which is the natural place for people to meet at and undertake recreational activities. The method that is used is a mail-survey that was sent to visitors and people living in Örebro. People living in Örebro represent potential visitors who live close to the recreation area.

As we travel more and more by train it becomes increasingly important that the time we spend traveling, is of great quality. This has been the foundation of this master thesis and has shaped the outcome of it. The traveling experience, that is, the experience of the landscape that flashes by outside the train window, is an important aspect in railway planning and an aspect that should be taken into greater consideration. The purpose of this master thesis has been to examine how to compose or improve the travel experience for an already planned high speed railway and how the travel experience can be combined with other aspects, which have claims on the landscape. This thesis is based on a literature study and a case study of Ostlänken. The work describes Ostlänken, a planned high speed railway in Sweden between Järna and Linköping, with top speeds at 300-320 kilometers per hour.

This is a graduate work at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, The Department of Urban and Rural Development, Ultuna. The purpose of this paper has been to find out and describe principles for designing parks that offers good recreational and aesthetical values and require little amount of carbon dioxide emissions during their maintenance. The purpose has also been to see if it's possible to use city wastewater in some extent to assure the plants water supply and to find other means to make it less necessary to use purified water for watering. Recently made studies as well as older ones show how important green areas are in dense city structures both from a health and a climate perspective. Trees and other plants adsorbs different forms of air pollution and can also lower the temperature in the surrounding area through their transpiration.

The subject of this project focuses on how Landscape Architects by their profession can explore and directly make a difference in the cityscape. This paper documents the process of art - based research practice. The purpose of installing temporary activities is to encourage people in the city to discover, participate and invite people to be more playful in the city. My experience of interaction in public spaces comes primarily from the education within landscape architecture, from site-specific art installations I have performed in different cities and from observations of landscape architecture, street art and urban life in the cities of Vienna, Berlin and Linköping. It is fascinating and inspiring to see how the urban space can invite and allow visitors to participate and therefore feel invited to the open space. As a landscape architect I wish to create urban spaces that are useful and inspiring for their visitors. The projects main question: How can you make temporary landscapes that encourage outdoorinspired activities at selected locations in the city? is answered by practice based research, an approach in which theoretical research are developed through practical experiments in the designing- and implementation process.

Stureholm Manor and garden is a relatively young farming unit on clay soil in the north western part of Skåne, a province in Southern Sweden. Since the middle of the 19th century the landscape has been actively cultivated and has been transformed from oak forrest into farmingland of high efficiency. The industrial era during the 19th and 20th centuries meant new posssibilites for cultivation of these clay soils. With equipment like steam ploughs and the possibility to obtain fertilizers, the harvest increased considerably. This increased prosperity provided estate Stureholm with a beatuiful corps de logi, a manor. The trends prevailing in Europe around the turn of the century 1800-1900 against the growing industrialism, was turned into a artisan movement known as Arts and Craft. The Swedish followers idealized our Swedish history and they took the turn of a national romantic movement that later turned into neoclassicism.

According to the Swedish strategy for forest protection, additionally 40 000 ha productive forestland will be protected in the county of Västerbotten, between 1999 and 2010. A national project was carried out to distinguish the proportion of forest with a high biological value, in all counties. The project resulted in demarcation of small landscape areas or small ?biological value regions? (bvr), with higher concentrations of forests with conservation values and red listed species than the surroundings. In Västerbotten, 26 such bvr?s were identified and the Counties Agency and Forest Agency in Västerbotten developed a regional strategy for forest conservation to standardize the forest protection process.

Biodiversity is essential for human well-being and it is defined as the genetic variation within species and the variety of species and ecosystems. Biodiversity provides several ecosystem services which are necessary for human beings but there are different threats towards the biodiversity. The biodiversity linked to the forest in Sweden are threatened, about 50 % of the red-listed species in Sweden are associated with forests. This is linked to the commercial exploitation of the boreal forest in Sweden which started 200 years ago. The forestry the last 50 years, with clear-cuts, have contributed to a fragmented forest landscape.

Clearcutting systems have been the dominating silvicultural approach during the last decades in the Nordic countries. While economically rational, it is also leading to a trivialisation of the flora and fauna, and may result in negative reactions of people in urban settings. As a consequence of this, and a more diversified view on which goods and services forests should deliver, there is an increasing interest in broadening the range of silvicultural methods that are used. The term continuous cover forestry (CCF) represents a suite of methods that have gained increasing interest in the Nordic countries. In CCF a considerable amount of the trees are left after harvest to favour values that require a continuity of tree-covered areas. There are thus hopes that this method will meet the needs for maintaining biodiversity and satisfy social and cultural values.

This Masters Thesis includes a survey of recreational habits and the attitudes towards forests of the people of Sätra, a suburb of the city of Gävle. The study also includes the planning and design of a forest suited for education in the same part of the city. The thesis is a part of a project called Tätortsnära skog, commissioned by the Swedish forest agency. The project aims to survey the recreational habits of the general public in the regions of Dalarna and Gävleborg. Tätortsnära skog is focused on cities with a population of more than 20 000 inhabitants, of which Gävle, Sandviken, Falun and Borlänge all fall within the category.