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With continued pressure on biodiversity and ever-growing conflicts with human development, qualified systems for scenario modelling, impact assessment and decision support are urgently needed. Such systems must be able to integrate complex models and information from many sources and do so in a flexible and transparent way. To that end, as well as for other complicated and data-intensive biodiversity research purposes, the concept of LifeWatch has emerged. The idea of LifeWatch is to construct e-infrastructure and virtual laboratories by integrating large data sources, computational capacities, and tools for analysis and modelling in an open, serviceoriented architecture. To be efficient and accurate, a continuous inflow of large quantities of data is essential. However, even with new techniques, government-funded monitoring data and research data will not feed the system with up-to-date species information of sufficient scale and resolution. To fill this void, skilled amateur observers (citizen scientists) can contribute to a very valuable extent. After a preparatory phase, a Swedish LifeWatch (SLW) consortium was initiated in 2011. Swedish LifeWatch developed an infrastructure where all components are accessible through open web services. At the SLW Analysis portal, different formats of species and environmental data can be accessed instantly, and integrated, analysed, visualized and downloaded at selected temporal, spatial or taxonomic scales. Swedish LifeWatch currently provides 46 million species observations from eight different databases, all harmonized according to standardized formats and the Dyntaxa taxonomic backbone database. Almost 40 million of these observations were provided by citizens through the online reporting system named the Species Observation System (SOS) or Artportalen. This paper describes this system, as well as the incentives that make it so successful. The citizen science data in the SOS are accessible, together with data from research and monitoring, in the SLW infrastructure, making the latter a powerful instrument for large-scale data extraction, visualization and analysis.

This book highlights the diverse roles of the humanities in the history of the Swedish welfare society. This society has often been seen as dominated by an instrumental view of knowledge that rewarded the social sciences, natural sciences and technology, but the contributions in this book show the significant role that the humanities played in the Swedish welfare state. Various forms of humanistic knowledge and knowledge actors were part of large networks and left a clear mark on the public sphere and society at large. A narrative of the marginalization and crisis of the humanities in the postwar period must therefore be problematized. This edited volume brings together some twenty scholars from a number of humanities disciplines (history, history of ideas, media history, literary studies, archaeology, education, etc.). Much of the current research on the history of the humanities conducted in Sweden today is brought together here and put in relation to international discussions in fields such as history of humanities, history of knowledge, etc. The book is a sibling to the monograph Humanister i offentligheten, which was published in 2022.

Lawns have a significant influence on the cityscape as one of the essential elements of green spaces and an important part of people's everyday lives. Most people in the Western world view lawns as a compulsory element of the urban landscape, almost an icon, without questioning their social, symbolic, ecological or aesthetic values. This research is a part of the conceptual framework and methodological approaches that are being used in an ongoing transdisciplinary collaboration project to study lawns in Sweden as a social and ecological phenomenon.The overall aim of this study was to investigate social and cultural perceptions of lawns, as well as motives behind decisions about the establishment and management of lawns in Sweden. Two multifamily housing typologies, the 'Million Programme' and People's Homes', were examined due to their dominance in Swedish cities. We also studied how an alternative vision of conventional lawns can be applied and accepted by urban residents. We estimated lawn cover in multi-family housing areas and links to people's perception and use of lawns. Questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and observational studies were used (N = 300). Our results showed that people like lawns even if they do not always directly use them. Lawns cover the most significant amount of outdoor spaces in all multi-family residential areas and accompany people everywhere from the house to the schoolyard or park. The total lawn cover in the study areas was 27.8%. Lawns were particularly valued as important places for different outdoor activities (playing, resting, picnicking, walking, socialising) and enjoying the green colour. However people do not want to use a vast monotonous lawn, but a variety of spaces that provide good conditions for different senses (sound, smell, touch and sight) and activities. Alternative lawns were also appreciated by many citizens, politicians, planners and managers. The implementation of new types of lawns requires special planning and design solutions adjusted for each particular neighbourhood.

The contemporary crises become increasingly complex, accompanied by more hostilities leading the infected societies to witness more unfortunate events, especially when political solutions are absent in war times or internal conflicts. The humanitarian sector, on the other hand, has to mitigate the severe effects of these crises on communities and provide assistance despite lack of funding and data. The action of UNHCR during the conflict in Syria has been taken as a case study due to the complexity of the situation in Syria. Contingency theory has been adopted within this study to investigate how does the humanitarian crisis in Syria impact the structure of UNHCR. Furthermore, contingency planning as a vital element to address emergencies effectively, enabling the organization to absorb shocks entirely or even partly, is adopted to investigate whether the UNHCR's crisis management is efficient or not. The study reveals that UNHCR's emergency preparedness planning is a sophisticated tool in meeting emergencies, particularly when adopting and implementing these plans on the ground and in coordination with the other stakeholders. Emergency preparedness planning has been observed to be an advantage to the organization primarily when the existing hazard or the predicable one is described as very dynamic. The case study discovers that UNHCR experienced extreme conditions in Syria, such as lack or absence of the data, funding gaps, and safety threatening. Despite these challenges, the organization developed an inclusive response action in which it collaborates with the other humanitarian organizations in Syria and involves the local communities to design site-oriented and more accurate plans.

Improved global healthcare rises the production and consumption of human pharmaceuticals. Insufficient wastewater treatment systems and unregulated downstream impacts causes pharmaceutical contamination of surface waters with trace residues in countries covering all continents. Earlier studies of aquatic systems have shown that pharmaceutical exposure influences fish physiology and causes behavioural responses at both individual and ecosystem level. Here, I evaluated how social status in juvenile brown trout (Salmo trutta) influenced behaviour after exposure to an anxiolytic drug (the benzodiazepine, oxazepam). For this project, the fish were exposed to one of three oxazepam treatments: one low, environmentally relevant dose, one high, human therapeutic relevant dose, and one control dose without oxazepam. I expected decreased aggressive behaviour and mitigated relations between dominant and subordinate individuals. Contrary to the prediction and to earlier documentation of fish behavioural responses to oxazepam exposure, neither of the treatments in this project resulted in altered social hierarchies. Moreover, there were no significant differences in brown trout aggression between the treatment groups. The interspecies variations and the relatively unexplored effects of pharmaceutical exposure on social behaviour motivates further studies, preferability over longer time periods with environmentally realistic contexts. This information should be used to improve pharmaceutical regulations and legislation for ecological risk assessments. ; Sjukvården förbättras globalt vilket innebär en ökad produktion och konsumtion av läkemedel. I dagsläget är reningsverkens filtrering av avloppsvatten otillräckliga och spår av läkemedel har hittats i vattendrag över hela världen. Studier av akvatiska miljöer som kontaminerats av läkemedel har påvisat beteendeförändringar hos fiskar och andra vattenlevande organismer med konsekvenser på både individ- och ekosystemnivå. Under det här projektet utvärderade jag hur öringens (Salmo ...

Many urban trees are located on private property in residential areas, but these trees are infrequently included in urban forest strategies and plans, meaning that for most local governments, the complete urban residential tree population, its potential for supplying ecosystem services and its dynamics are unknown. This thesis examined the assessment methodologies of ecosystem services provided by trees in the attempt to provide valuable information about residential trees. The abundance of trees on individual residential properties was tested against potential decision-driving variables, collected using field work, remote sensing, questionnaire surveys and spatial property information. While residents reported positive attitudes to trees and benefits they provide, this did not necessarily result in greater tree abundance on individual properties. It was found that long-term of validation of sampling methods is required for monitoring of urban trees. Remote sensing could be seen as a reliable and non-invasive way to determine canopy cover using publicly available information in residential areas. This thesis improved understanding of residential urban trees and the ecosystem services they provide as the part of the urban forest. These assessment should include social and spatial variables influencing their development to allow residential trees to become integrated into local governance arrangement structure in order to develop informed management approaches for the entire urban forest.

This study examines the changes of total organic carbon (TOC) concentrations in 20 Swedish lakes throughout Sweden using pre-industrial (1860) TOC0 inferred from near-infrared spectrometry (TOCNIRS) of lake sediments to determine if land use change over time could be a plausible explanation for changes in lake water TOC. The study also focuses on the importance of using inferred pre-industrial data of lake water pH and TOC for acidification assessment, in particular ANC0. Most lakes in this study show a long-term decreasing trend of TOC from 1860 up to -0.45 mg/l/yr-1 to an identified breaking point where the TOC turns from decreasing to increasing. Fifteen of the lakes have a breaking point in the mid to late 20th century (1950-1980) while five lakes do not display a clear breaking point. The magnitude of the increasing trend of TOC after the breaking point is up to 0.16 mg/l/yr-1 . Changes in land use were studied by comparing historical maps with present databases of land use. Land use changes in the catchment area show substantial differences in forest cultivation; for instance the coniferous forest has increased by 26% on average. This increase is due to removal of native forest (deciduous forest) and removal of wetlands. Two major conclusions can be drawn from the effects of land use change on TOC levels: (I) No direct correlation between land use change and long-term trends of TOC could be identified in this study. Previous studies have identified the effects of land use change on the carbon storage in the catchment area that corresponds well with the findings of this study. (II) the character of the forest land plays an important role when discussing the effects of land use change for long term TOC trends. The change from open-ended forests with large trees to intense managed forest is considered as an important driving force for TOC. To determine reference conditions there is a need to make good estimations of ANC0 for acidification assessment in Swedish lakes. This study examines the precision of MAGIC model ANC0 calculations (ANC0-MAGIC) against ANC0 calculated with TOCNIRS, diatom-pH and calculated pCO2 (ANC0, diatom-NIRS). ANC0, diatom-NIRS shows a mean difference of (-31µeq/l) when comparing it with ANC0-MAGIC. In comparison, when using contemporary TOC (TOCt) mean lake value 1990-2005 (ANC0,diatom-TOC) the results show a mean difference of (-0.45 µeq/l) in comparison with ANC0-MAGIC. A better fit is generated with TOCNIRS then TOCt. This could be an indication that ANC0- MAGIC overestimates the acidification of Swedish lakes. The European Union's "Water 8 Framework Directive", which Sweden has implemented, requires that all surface waters within the Union's authority have achieved good ecological status by 2015. According to the ecological quality standard the differences between the pre-industrial pH and contemporary pH, i.e. ΔpH=pH0-pHt, should not be more than 0.4 units. This study shows that the long-term trends have to be accounted for when calculating reference conditions and ecological status for acidification

Sverige är ett relativt glesbefolkat land med tillsynes gott om mark att bygga på. Medan det funnits perioder då jordbruksmarkens bevarande lyfts i den politiska diskussionen, har inget lagstadgat skydd för jordbruksmark införts. För närvarande tycks jordbruksmarken i samhällsplaneringen åter blivit mer aktuell. Städer i många länder och även svenska kommuner ser sig om efter alternativ till glesa och markkrävande utvecklingsplaner. Syftet med denna orienterande studie var att undersöka hur bevarandet av god jordbruksmark värderas i relation till exploatering inom kommunal översiktlig planering, och att se med vilka strategier/policyer och metoder som detta hävdas. Studien har bedrivits som ett samarbete mellan jordbruk och bebyggd miljö inom SLU:s program för Fortlöpande Miljöanalys.