In Korsnäs district Dala Väst there were problems with information concerning their younger forests, mainly those in pre-thinning stage. They were divided into large, heterogeneous stands with often poor stand data quality. In 2006 an aerial photo interpretation of the young forests was conducted to fix these problems. Necessary information to get from the interpretation were silvicultural management suggestions, new stand delineation and new stand data. This thesis is supposed to evaluate the quality and usability of the interpreted data. To evaluate the interpretation an objective control inventory was conducted in 60 stands, either through callipering or counting stems.

SCA Skog has taken the initiative to this Master?s thesis. Today SCA Skog has a great need to update their informtion on young forest stands across large areas. Traditional field inventory methods for updating stand databases are expensive and time consuming. However, the inventory could be made more efficient if stand boundaries and stand characteristics are derived from aerial photographs.

To be able to plan different treatments, accurate data is required. The collection of data is often expensive and that?s why the aim is to lower the inventory costs without loosing the accuracy of the data. Holmen Skog has in its strive to lower the costs, decided to evaluate two different methods for forest delineation, computer aided forest delineation and digital stereo view. This study?s purpose is to evaluate these two methods in regard to usability for a beginner and how good the delineation gets.

The purpose of this study was to investigate produced laser data from the new national height model's airborne laser scanning in Sweden, what quality it has and whether it can be used for forest management planning. From airborne laser scanning one can obtain information on forest variables such as tree species, height, diameter and basal area. Norra skogsägarna is the principal employer of this project and they wanted know to the quality of the laser data which needs to cope with their standards. If the laser data the quality required it can replace some of the operations performed by field planners. To examine the quality of the produced laser data a control tax assessment has been performed in 30 forest departments. This was done in an objective manner.

Rikkärr är en naturtyp med hög artrikedom, som återfinns i kalkrika våtmarker. Kända rikkärr upptar idag 2-3 % av myrarealen i Sverige (Sjörs & Gunnarsson 2002). Med snabbare och effektivare inventeringsmetoder skulle med all sannolikhet fler rikkärr återfinnas. Rikkärrens många arter har under lång tid anpassat sig till de speciella förhållandena men är idag starkt hotade då biotopen rikkärr minskar. Tillbakagången är ett resultat av dikning, upphörd hävd, övergödning, försurning och skogsbruk.

En detaljerad landformkartering av ett högfjällsområde i Vindelälvens källområde har utförts med syfte att öka kunskapen om inlandsisens dynamik och karaktär (iskantens reträtt, isens aktivitet och rörelseriktningar och isens basala temperatur) under deglaciationen i denna del av den Svenska fjällkedjan.Undersökningsområdet antas ha varit beläget inom det, för inlandsisen, bottenfrusna kärnområde som karaktäriserade det senaste istidsmaximat (LGM). Trots avsaknaden av subglacial smältning under de kallbottnade subglaciala temperaturförhållandena fanns det tillgång på smältvatten. Spår efter forna issjöar och det glacifluviala landformsystemet är därför de enda data som finns för att rekonstruera isens reträttmönster där den varit kallbottnad eller där det är brist på andra landformer.Den Flygbildstolkning som genomfördes fokuserade på glaciolakustrina, glaciofluviala och subglaciala landformer. Rekonstruktionen av isreträttmönstet bygger på fördelningen av glacialmorfologin, de dämda issjöarna och den iskant som krävdes för att en dämning av dessa issjöar skulle uppstå. En teoretisk modell för beräkning av isprofilen användes för att öka detaljgraden i rekonstruktionen av isavsmältningen och som kontroll av den landformbaserade rekonstruktionen.

During the past years fire has been identified as an important factor for nature conservation in the forest landscape. To accurately quantify the size of a burnt area is obviously important, but also to quantify the degree of fire damage to the tree canopy. Such data are important for assessing the conservation value, and to support planning and management of the burned area in the future. I have examined how to estimate the status of tree crowns after fire from interpretation of aerial photographs. This is possible because fire changes the structure of tree crowns and this influences the colours in aerial photographs by spectral reflection. Included in the study are four areas, three of which burned in 2005 and one in 2006.