Understory vegetation and fungi are regarded as important ecological drivers of processes like productivity and nutrient cycling in boreal forests. Whilst those processes are linked to soil water content, relatively little is known about the sources of soil water for these forest components. During early autumn in boreal forests, temperature falls and large events of rain are frequent which may influence soil water availability. To better understand the autumn plant-soil-fungi water relationships in this ecosystem, I used stable isotopes techniques in this study to examine the water sources for ericaceous shrubs and fungi in a Scots pine forest following a large, early autumn rain event. I hypothesize that ericaceous shrubs of two functional groups (evergreen vs.

The purpose of this essay is to illustrate the debate of water politics and privatisation of water distribution. My method is debate analysis and qualitative idea analysis and for my essay I used three books that try to persuade the reader that his or her idea is the best for this water crisis. My main question is to illustrate the debate concerning water privatisations. I will also look at the arguments for or against privatisations and finally determine how the authors think the state should act towards this subject. The first book I used was Vandana Shivas ?Water Wars? that when published started an international discussion about the water privatisations.

Tussilago farfara, coltsfoot, is a troublesome perennial weed with deep lying rhizome, which can vegetatively generate new plants. The mechanical control of coltsfoot that is used today, "starvation", which consists of several cultivations of the soil, which fragmentises the rhizome. This results in production of new shoots, which leads to depletion of nutrient resources; as long the new plant is not allowed to establish. However, very little research has been done to investigate how the starving technique affects the regenerative ability of coltsfoot. The purpose of this experiment with coltsfoot was to investigate how fragmentation and burial depths affect the time of emergence, number of emerged shoots per rhizome fragment, number of shoots per node, and if the germination ability within nodes changes during the experiment.

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 river Bivaröd is one of the river Helgeån tributaries which has the highest and the fastest increase in water colour. The reason behind this increase is unclear but several factors have been suggested to affect this pattern. In this work, I studied the role of land use, iron and precipitation for water colour increase in river Bivaröd for the period 1976 -2011. Data from a field study along with data from SRK for river Helgeån were used for the analyses. The results showed that both water colour and iron concentration increase and that there is a strong correlation between these two variables.

This diploma work covers an investigation over the heat - and hot water systems of thetenant-owner's association, Bogården. The heat - and hot water needs of Bogården aresatisfied by both district heating as well as three heat pumps. Implemented investigationshows that the heat pumps are not used in a profitable way. Apart from that, the reservepossibilities are small. There is also a risk of the growth of Legionella bacterium in thehot water system.Since the heat pumps are already installed, HSB-Gävleborg (responsible for Bogården)has a wish to investigate possible proposed actions for optimization of existing plant.After completed investigation, a new proposed action is presented.

The global climate-change means increasing mean-temperature and higher precipitation in Sweden, which leads to shorter periods of frozen ground in the forest. At the same time the harvesting machines are getting bigger and more powerful. The forest industry aim at an even wood flow, and the ground damage has to be as low as possible. The two biggest causes for ground-damage is the bearing capacity of the forest ground and the ground-pressure of the harvesting machines. The aim of this study was to find out some rules for the machine choice considering ground pressure, when harvesting on ground with low bearing capacity.A field study, using a Valmet 890.3 forwarder, was carried out where different ground pressures and their effect on the ground were tested on two different types of ground.Additionally, an inventory of damaged harvesting grounds was made.

The report begins with a general inventory of possible technical faults in a hydropower plant and of possible fault indicating measurements. Then an investigation is made concerning a few different faults. Based on this investigation a choice on seal box condition and water leakage is made as problem for a more thorough examination, in which it is concluded that the turbine water leakage is larger when the turbine is put into operation. The examination ultimately results in a computer alarm for faults related to the seal box. Finally a few things are mentioned about flow measurement and pressure measurement in relation to the project as a whole..

AbstractThis research is about pre-school children?s conceptions of the river and the water environment. The aim of this study was to apply a new teaching method based on the outside learning, as well as to test the method and see if it works, i.e. if children get more knowledge this way compared to ordinary methods like teaching in the class-room which involves showing pictures and discussion of them.The main questions in this study were how children get new knowledge through outside learning and how effective this learning method is, i.e. how much they noticed and learned about the river and the water environment as a result of that outside observation.

During cold winter days it is likely that people in buildings with older windows or high glass facades experience thermal discomfort due to cold air down draughts. Earlier work has been aimed at finding analytical methods to predict the speed of the airflow in a room and in practice heating appliances are often placed beneath the windows to reduce the draught along the floor. In a study from 2012 Mohammad Parchami developed a method for estimating the required heating power to counteract the downdraught with such heating appliances. In this study, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) was used to evaluate the usefulness of Parchami?s method and also to examine the potential of adapting the depth of the inward window sill as a means of decreasing the down draught.

The purpose of this report is to investigate the possibilities with drain water heat recovery (DWHR) in residential buildings. Information and relevant theory has been collected and summarized in this report. Calculations have been done for given scenarios to evaluate profits. DWHR heat exchangers use simple technology and have long life-time. The heat exchanger is connected to outgoing drainage pipe and incoming cold-water supply so countercurrent flow is accomplished.

Water connects heaven and earth. Water is the most obvious element of nature. To move in water is for me more than cooling of on a hot summer?s day. It is about freedom and the feeling of being above the state of things.

This report consists of  an anlysis of the imapct of a dam failure at Tjärnviksdalen in Ragunda, Sweden. The analysis is conducted using the EU model for environmental impact assessments, as well as a group interview. The presentation of the results in the form of a map  where the water level has been raised to the level that the County Board  of Jämtland considers to be possible in case of a dam failure.The result of this work is a detailed analysis of the consequenses that a dam failure would cause, the result consider everything from the direct consequences of the water column to an analysis of the chemical changes that the water would undergo.Parts of the analysis have shown that the purification centre and the old deposits will have the biggest impact on Hammarstrand. Both the purification centre and the deposits will realise chemicals to its nearest environment and because of the flooded purification centre the city will not have the ability to clean the water. .

More frequent and intensified rainfalls are expected to occur due to climate change in the nearfuture. This together with a higher proportion of paved areas increases the pressure on today?sstorm water systems (Risinger, 2014; Boverket, 2013; Stahre, 2006). Traditional storm watersystems (i.e. underground pipe systems) have during last decades started to be questioned(Olshammar & Baresel, 2012).

The management of water resources and waste water varies between the countries of the EU. For many years, a large part of the water in Europe has been contaminated by, among other things, insufficiently treated waste water and emissions from agriculture. The EU Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC and the Urban Waste Water Directive 91/271/EEC are intended to harmonize fresh-water management and waste water management within the whole EU, aiming at safeguarding drinking water of good quality and a high quality of all water within the EU today and in the future. There are however some problems concerning the waste-water directive. One problem is the huge investment needed in Slovakia to fulfil the demands of the waste-water directive for waste-water management in larger communities (with more than 2000 inhabitants).