Rock groundwater has always caused major problems when tunnelling. Water leaking into tunnels can cause large problems, not only on the construction itself but also on the environment. A continuous water leakage can lead to a declining water supply, and geotechnical problems can occur as subsidence in the ground. Therefore it is of great importance to predict the consequences that can appear in the surroundings due to a declining groundwater surface. The aim of the study was to investigate different methods for predicting leakage and changes in groundwater level due to tunnelling excavations in rock. This thesis was performed by comparing mathematical methods, actual groundwater changes and results from preliminary investigations. Investigations were made for three railway tunnels planned by Botniabanan AB. Varvsbergstunneln (2 km), Åsbergstunneln (1 km) and Strannebergstunneln (1.4 km) all situated in the surroundings of Örnsköldsvik. During the time this thesis was performed, all tunnels have been fully excavated. This thesis has emphasised difficulties in predicting groundwater behaviour as tunnelling excavations are made in rocks. The reason is the complex characteristics of rocks. The conductivity seems to be the parameter that is most difficult to determine with a high accuracy, and hence the accuracy shows in the results. Also the result is affected by the chosen mathematical method. Although careful preliminary investigations are made, it is hard to determine the rock characteristics with such accuracy that leakage and groundwater level changes can be predicted with high precision. However, mathematical methods are a good supplement when determining groundwater influences around railway tunnels in rock. / Vatten i berg har ofta inneburit stora problem vid tunnelbyggen. Vatten som läcker in i tunnlar kan orsaka stora problem på såväl konstruktionen som miljön och dessutom kan ett stort inflöde medföra stabilitetsproblem. Om vatten läcker in kontinuerligt kan omgivningarna dräneras så att vattentillgången minskar och geotekniska problem kan uppstå i form av sättningar i marken. Det är därför av stor vikt att prediktera inläckaget och de konsekvenser som kan uppstå på omgivningen till följd av en grundvattensänkning. Syftet med arbetet har varit att undersöka olika metoder för att förutspå inläckage och nivåförändring av grundvatten i samband med tunnelbygge i berggrund. Arbetet utfördes genom att en jämförelse gjordes mellan matematiska metoder, verkliga grundvattenförändringar samt resultat från förundersökningar. Undersökningar gjordes för tre järnvägstunnlar som är projekterade av Botniabanan AB. Varvsbergstunneln (2 km), Åsbergstunneln (1 km) samt Strannebergstunneln (1.4 km) som alla är belägna i närheten av Örnsköldsvik. Under examensarbetets gång har man hunnit driva igenom samtliga tre tunnlar. Examensarbetet har påvisat svårigheterna i att förutspå grundvattnets beteende vid tunnelbyggen i berggrund. Detta beror på att berggrunden är ett komplext byggnadsmaterial vars egenskaper är svåra att bestämma. Konduktiviteten tycks vara den parameter som är svårast att bestämma med hög noggrannhet, och noggrannheten avspeglas i resultatet. Dessutom beror resultatet av vilken beräkningsmetod som väljs. Trots utförliga förundersökningar är det alltså svårt att bestämma bergets egenskaper med sådan noggrannhet att inläckage och nivåförändring av grundvatten kan förutspås med stor precision. Dock är matematiska metoder bra hjälpmedel för att bestämma grundvattenpåverkan kring järnvägstunnlar i berg.

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. The pumping well was pumped at a rate of 1.7 L/s and water samples were collected from the pumped water. The calculated mass recovery was large for bromide (101 %) but considerably lower for the dyes rhodamine WT (70 %), uranine (61 %) and Naphthionate (19 %). The low mass recovery for the dyes is probably due to degradation and maybe also adsorption. An analytical solution to the advection – dispersion equation in one dimension for radial converging flow was used for the interpretation of the breakthrough curves. Smallest and largest transit time that was received from the model fitting was 1,9 days and 5,1 days respectively and without exception large longitudinal dispersivities (9-35 m). Point dilution tests were performed in the injection wells in order to determine the ground water flow at these wells. The tests gave information about the magnitude of the ground water flow, differences between the wells and the flow change at pumping. Travel times were estimated from the received breakthrough curves and the travel time distributions can be used for comparison against stochastic simulated travel times of the groundwater. / Vid utformningen av skyddsområden för grundvattentäkter är det av stor vikt att kunna uppskatta grundvattnets transporttid (uppehållstid) från olika partier av akviferen till uttagsplatsen. Dessa bedömningar har en tendens att bli osäkra på grund av heterogeniteter i akviferen. Som ett led i arbetet att utveckla metoder för en säkrare avgränsning av skyddsområden genomfördes ett spårämnesförsök i en isälvsavlagring (Järlåsaåsen) belägen cirka 2,5 mil nordväst om Uppsala. Syftet med examensarbetet var att genomföra, beskriva och utvärdera spårämnesförsöket. Bestämda transporttider från spårämnesförsöket skulle sedan kunna användas för jämförelse med stokastiskt simulerade transporttider för grundvattnet i området. Tre färgspårämnen (rhodamin WT, uranin och naphtionat) och ett salt (NaBr) användes vid spårämnesförsöken. Spårämnena injicerades i fyra olika grundvattenrör belägna 25 meter från en uttagsbrunn. Pumpflödet ur uttagsbrunnen var 1,7 L/s och med en automatprovtagare togs vattenprover från det uppumpade vattnet. Resultatet från massbalansberäkningarna visade på att all injicerad bromid återfanns i uttagsbrunnen, men andelen återfunnen spårämnesmassa var betydligt lägre för färgspårämnena rhodamin WT (70 %), uranin (61 %) och naphtionat (19 %). Den låga andelen återfunnen massa beror troligtvis främst på nedbrytning och kanske även på adsorption. En analytisk lösning till advektions- dispersionsekvationen i en dimension för radiellt konvergerande strömning användes vid utvärderingen av genombrottskurvorna. En minsta och största uppehållstid på 1,9 dygn respektive 5,1 dygn och överlag oväntat stora dispersiviteter (9 – 35 m) erhölls från kurvanpassningen. Den första ankomsttiden till uttagsbrunnen hade ett minsta och största värde på 3,8 respektive 13 timmar. Utspädningsförsök genomfördes också för att bestämma storleken på flödet vid injektionsrören. Dessa försök gav en bild av flödets storlek, skillnader mellan de olika injektionsrören och flödets förändring vid pumpning. De bestämda transporttiderna visar på relativt stora tidsskillnader och ett heterogent försöksområde. Transporttidsfördelningarna utgör också ett underlag för en jämförelse mot stokastiskt simulerade transporttider av grundvattnet.

Mosquitoes are found in extremely large numbers in the lower parts of the River Dalälven. In the year 2000 the mosquito nuisance was especially high, resulting in foundation of the Biological mosquito control project. Since 2001 mosquito larvae are controlled by using a biological pesticide BTI (Bacillus thuringiensis ssp israelensis). The mosquito fauna in the area is dominated by flood water mosquitoes, a group of mosquitoes that are very aggressive and form new generations of mosquitoes during every single flooding event during the summer. To be able to efficiently control the mosquitoes it is essential to know the extension and locality of the flooding. A flooding event is evaluated by how high the water level will reach and at which time the top of the hydrograph is accruing. There is a need for a tool for short time prediction of flooding events in the Nedre Dalälven region. In this study a hydraulic model in the software HEC-RAS has been used, here called HEC-RAS NEDA. The hydraulic model came up with good results when predicting water surface levels. The validation process made from figures of a period with large amplitude in water levels showed that the modelled water level was within ± 0,05 m from the observed water stands. It is a stable model that can handle 100-year flows with quick changes in the flow. The correspondence is good concerning the water levels and it functions well when studying the top of the hydrograph. HEC-RAS NEDA is an accurate and easy to manage tool for prediction of flooding in the lake of Bysjön, Österviken and Färnebofjärden. Modelled results have been compared with the model made by Swedish meteorological and hydrological institute on the request of Räddningsverket. The results from the two models shows large discrepancies, probably because of low accuracy data entered into the model from Räddningsverket. Räddningsverket has used the Geographical Sweden Data height data bank´and I used the height data from a laser scanned digital terrain model. Area studies have also been made according to how the area of the water surface changes with the water stand. These studies show that during the flood in year 2000, 55 km2 was flooded based on laserscanning in Färnebofjärden. / Mygg förekommer i extremt stora antal i området kring nedre delen av Dalälven. År 2000 var myggplågan särskilt stor vilket medförde att projekt Biologisk Myggkontroll bildades. Myggbekämpning har bedrivits i Nedre Dalälven sedan 2001 med ett biologiskt bekämpningsmedel, Bacillus thuringiensis ssp israelensis (BTI). Områdets myggfauna domineras av så kallade översvämningsmygg, en grupp stickmyggor som är mycket aggressiva och bildar nya generationer efter varje enskild översvämning under sommaren. För en effektiv bekämpning av mygglarverna krävs att man vet översvämningens omfattning och lokalisering. En översvämning bedöms med avseende på hur högt vattenståndet når samt vid vilken tidpunkt hydrografens toppvärde inträffar. Det finns ett behov av ett verktyg som kan utföra korttidsprognoser av översvämningar i Nedre Dalälven. I denna studie har en hydraulisk modell i programvaran HEC-RAS använts, här kallad för HEC-RAS NEDA. Den hydrauliska modellen fungerar bra till att användas för prediktering av vattenstånd i Nedre Dalälven. Valideringen av modellen mot värden under en testperiod med stor amplitud i vattenståndet visade att modellerade vattenstånd var inom ± 0,05 m från de uppmätta värdena. Modellen är stabil och klarar av att hantera 100-årsflöden med snabba flödesfluktuationer. HEC-RAS NEDA är ett noggrant och lätthanterligt predikteringsverktyg för översvämningar i Bysjön, Österviken och Färnebofjärden. Överensstämmelsen är god gällande nivån av vattenståndet och den fungerar bra för att studera hydrografens topp temporärt. Modellerade resultat har jämförts med karteringar som Sveriges meteorologiska och hydrologiska institut har gjort på Räddningsverkets begäran. Resultaten skiljer sig betydligt mellan HEC-RAS NEDA och Räddningsverkets modell, troligen på grund av att Räddningsverket har stora svagheter i indata till modellen. Räddningsverket har använt Geografiska Sverige Data-Höjddata och modellen HEC-RAS NEDA är framtagen med höjddata från en digital terrängmodell baserad på laserscanning. Areella studier i GIS över hur arean av vattenspegeln förändras med vattenståndet visar att Färnebofjärden under augusti år 2000 lade 55 km2 under vatten.

India and many other developing countries confront serious problems of declining water tables. In India there is no real water shortage, but ineffective use of surface water leads to freshwater run-off. By building dams and irrigation water systems the Indian government has been trying to find a more effective use of surface water and thereby increase the agricultural productivity. But mismanagement of irrigation systems by local governments called for alternative management techniques, and during the last decades the central Indian government has been trying to decentralise management and governance of irrigation water to local water users. This Minor Field Study (MFS) focuses on a local implementation of Participatory Irrigation Management in the Indian state Madhya Pradesh. The aim of the thesis is to analyse the way the local government handles the decentralisation of irrigation water management, by identify and illuminate communication channels. The thesis is built on the basic idea that functioning environmental communication is the key to reach a functioning decentralised and sustainable water management. Interviews with local government officials, citizens of a local village, and staff from a locally involved NGO within a case study constitute most of the empirical data. Theories of decentralisation of natural resource management, community participation, communication, and NGO cooperation are presented. With starting point in the empirical material and the presented theories has way the local government handles the decentralisation process, and the role of the locally involved NGO, been analysed. The study shows shortcomings in: education of stakeholders, communication training among government officials, trust in the capability of local water users, and communication between stakeholders. The study also enlighten the government officials fear of losing political power, the NGOs role as communication channel, and the formation of locally rooted organisations.

Resilience is an essential and highly desired characteristic of a social-ecological system’s ability to adapt and adjust to various stresses and shocks that cause disruption. As social and ecological systems are intertwined and continually experiencing changes and disturbances, a major challenge appears revolving around the ways in which this resilience can be built and investigated. Social-ecological resilience can be defined as the amount of stress or disturbance that a particular system can tolerate, while still maintaining the same functions and identity. This paper uses social-ecological resilience concepts as a research framework, and examines three main themes that allow for the building of water management resilience to occur. These themes include learning to live with change, nurturing the ability to adapt/adjust to changes, and also on creating opportunities for self-organization. Two ethnic minority villages in Northern Thailand were chosen as research sites, in which the village water management practices were studied within a specific time period. Varying degrees of quantity and quality water issues within both villages have brought about stress and disturbances within their water management practices and increased the need to deal with these problems. Research was conducted at a community scale and resilience analysis pertains only to this specific level. Through the utilization of focus groups and interviews, qualitative data was collected and analyzed within a SE resilience context. This paper sets out to explore how social-ecological resilience has been built or not, and to what degree this has occurred within these two villages water management practices. The analysis indicates how complex and interconnected the social and ecological systems are and how the water management practices of these two communities play a role in this complex, dynamic process. Conclusions drawn are not limited to these two communities, but can be applied to the wider Northern Thailand region.

Although the access to adequate safe drinking water is taken for granted in developed countries and urban settlements in some developing countries at the end of 2002 it was estimated that globally, some 1.1 billion people still rely on unsafe drinking water sources particularly in the developing regions of India and Africa. Malawi is one of the developing countries located in the arid-semiarid Sub-Saharan African region with only 62% of its people having access to safe drinking water. Boreholes and dug wells equipped with hand pumps is the technology that has assisted the country to increase the proportion of people having access to safe drinking water. The underlying objectives of the study were to critically characterise the existing rural water facilities management systems, and to assess the status of the water facilities that were provided to rural communities by different organisations and individuals. The aim is to form an information base upon which rural water development efforts will be advanced and to expose points of intervention for sustainable rural water supply. A survey was conducted in two traditional authorities of Kapeni and Lundu in Blantyre rural district where 94 water users were interviewed in their households. Physical inspection survey of the water facilities in the area under study was done. Focus group discussions and informal key informants’ interviews were also done. A majority (54%) of the respondents indicated that they participated in various stages of their water supply project. The actual responsibility for the management of all water points which were visited lies with a representative group of local community known as water points committee (WPC). 97% of the water facilities that were surveyed had WPCs of which 67% received training in management, operation and maintenance (O&M) of the water facilities. There are two types of hand pumps that were found in the area, Malda and Afridev. 83% of the water facilities were still in order. The downtimes of the water facilities ranged from 1 to 360 days depending on the kind of fault. The traditional leaders, Health Surveillance Assistants (HSAs) from government and mission clinics, water facility providers and the local communities themselves are the key players at community level. The trust that the communities have in their local leadership, the approach used in provision of the water facilities, the benefits that accrued to the local communities, and the length of time the WPCs serve the communities are the major factors that influence the communities’ participation in O&M activities. Inadequate number of qualified area technicians, theft of hand pump parts and high prices of some spare parts are some of the problems that impede effective O&M of the water facilities. To improve management, O&M of the water supply systems in the area communities have additional number of the water points, and training and refresher courses for WPCs and caretakers as some of their immediate needs. The common technical problems are hand pump related in water facilities equipped with Afridev hand pump and well drying for Malda hand pump equipped water facilities. The WPCs that are not active are those whose water facilities have been out of order for a long time. Recommendations are made regarding; planning phase, construction and operation phase, and government regulation.

Abstract. Like other developing countries, forest conversion to agricultural land has been a common practice in Kenya for the last four decades. Apart from illegal logging, the main cause is the growing population. For most developing countries where majority rely on agriculture for food production, conversion of forests into agricultural land is likely to occur. Kenya is one among such countries and is where the study basin is located. Knowledge of hydrological studies is crucial for proper planning and decision making of limited water resources in river basins. Even in regions where data is limited, changes in land use is a concern to many basin communities over the globe including Arror inhabitants since it has an impact on stream flows. Despite Arror downstream communities’ claims on reducing river flows, scientific proof on this is lacking. Such kind of belief/claim can result to conflicts (Downstream vs. Upstream water users). The main objective of this thesis was therefore to determine the effect of land use changes on Arror basin hydrology, focusing on the impact of deforestation since it has been the main land use change for the last four decades. The overall intention of the study is to verify the downstream basin’s inhabitant’s hypothetical thinking and also create an information foundation base for other future studies in the basin. Based on the lessons learned in this study, several recommendations have been highlighted, including land satellite rainfall data to augment the rainfall data obtained from the relatively sparse rain gauge network in the basin.

Dynamic expansions and contractions of stream networks can play an important role for hydrologic processes as they can connect different parts of the landscape to the stream channels. However, we know little about the temporal and spatial variations of stream networks during different flow and wetness conditions. This study focuses on the contraction and expansion of stream networks during different flow conditions in the boreal Krycklan catchment, located in Northern Sweden. The stream network and initiation points were extracted from a gridded digital elevation model (DEM) of 5-meter resolution, and then compared with the stream network initiation points (heads) observed during the spring flood (freshet) period in 2012. From the results of the study, it was clearly seen that the observed stream heads and the stream heads appearing in the stream network map extracted from DEM did not agree very well. 49% of the total observed stream heads (49) fell onto the low order stream branches and headwater streams derived from the DEM. Only few of them exactly matched the modeled stream heads. Moreover, the modeled stream network was much denser than the observed stream network, and so the simple raster based dynamic model developed could not well represent the dynamic stream network extension in the real system. Most headwater streams in the study catchment were man-made ditches, which were dug to drain water wetlands and to increase forest productivity. The majority of observed stream heads were formed by seepage from the saturated surrounding soils, while only a few of them were formed by saturation overland flow.  On the other hand, the dynamic stream network derived from the DEM suggested that the number of streams of lower order and their lengths was sensitive to change in streamflow, especially during the high flow episode.

Vattenskyddsområdet för Degebergas kommunala vattentäkt inrättades 1979 och skall innan 2022 uppdateras enligt ny lagstiftning och miljökvalitetsmål som en del av Kristianstad kommuns miljöarbete. Denna rapport har tagit del av befintligt tekniskt underlag från C4 Teknik, Kristianstad kommun, med förslag på utformning av nytt utökat vattenskyddsområde för att därigenom inventera och analysera de riskobjekt som kan utgöra potentiella föroreningskällor för vattentäkten.För att kunna göra en riskanalys för det förslagna vattenskyddsområdet så har miljö- och hälsoskyddskontoret och grundvattenplaneraren på kommunen tillhandahållit information om riskobjekt och deras placering i området. Resultatet av arbetet består av en bedömning av vattentäktens sårbarhet samt föroreningspotentialen hos de specifika riskobjekten i området. Vattentäkten är en del av ett betydande grundvattenmagasin som ligger i isälvsavlagringarna i Degebergas södra samhälle. Isälvsavlagringarna har hög genomsläpplighet och är känsliga för föroreningar men har samtidigt hög omsättning. Det gör att vattentäkten är mindre känslig för vattenlösliga ämnen och desto mer känslig för hydrofoba ämnen.Degeberga har en grundvattentäkt med goda tillgångar och mycket bra kvalitet. Det finns ingen reservvattentäkt idag som kan ersätta den så skyddsvärdet är väldigt högt.Syftet med det här arbetet är att ge Kristianstads kommun material som kan stärka behovet av nya restriktioner och utbredning av det kommande uppdaterade vattenskyddsområdet.

Expansion of cities and major infrastructure projects lead to changes in land use and river flows. The probability of flooding is expected to increase in the future as a result of these changes in combination with climate change. Hydraulic models can be used to obtain simulated water levels to investigate the risk of flooding and identify areas that might potentially be flooded due to climate change. Since a model is a simplification of the reality it is important to be aware of a model’s uncertainties. A part of this study is therefore aimed to perform a sensitivity analysis to determine which parameter has the largest impact on the model result and has to be treated more careful and accurately. In this study the 1-dimensional flow model Hydrologic Engineering Center-River Analysis System (HEC-RAS) were assed to simulate predicted water levels within the studied river. Topographic data was used to draw cross sections in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) with additional tools of HEC-GeoRAS, in order to get information about the streams geometry. The purpose of doing a sensitivity analysis was attained by investigating changes of the model results when changing different input parameters. This work is based on a reach along Mora river, in Södertälje, Sweden, as a case study. The sensitivity analysis indicate that the number of cross sections has a significant effect when simulating water levels of low flows and that the absolute error of simulated water levels increases as the average spacing between cross sections increases. The second part of the study aims to examine the effects of climate change and how it will affect water levels for the studied river. The results of the study showed that simulated water levels with flows of 100, 200 and 500 years return periods stay within the river channel and do not indicate flooded areas. The results also showed that a backwater effect due to sea level rise would affect the water levels in the stream up to a specific critical point along the studied reach. The lower reach indicated results to contain more uncertain region, where floodplain delineation changed easily as the number of cross section was changed. It is therefore important to identify the areas where uncertainties can be more critical for the results. Because of the uncertainties associated to the model used, it is important to notice that the results of this work correspond particularly to the case study in Mora River. / Studien genomförs inom Ostlänken, som är den första delsträckan av en ny höghastighetsjärnväg mellan Järna och Linköping. Bebyggelse och stora infrastrukturprojekt kommer förändra markanvändning och flöden i vattendrag. I följd av dessa förändringar, tillsammans med framtidens förändrade klimat, kommer risken för översvämningar kunna öka. För att undersöka riskerna för översvämningar och kartlägga områden som riskerar att översvämmas är en hydraulisk modell ett verktyg som kan användas. Då en modell endast är en förenkling av verkligheten och påverkas av flera olika parametrar är det viktigt att vara medveten om modellers osäkerheter. För att få modellen att efterlikna verkligheten så bra som möjligt kan det vara bra att veta vilka parametrar som har störst inverkan på modellens resultat och som bör bearbetas mer noggrant. Därmed är en del av studiens syfte att göra en känslighetsanalys för att utreda vilka modellparametrar och indata som påverkar modellresultaten, med fokus på att analysera simulerade vattennivåer. Känslighetsanalysen utförs genom en fallstudie över Moraån, där den endimensionella flödesmodellen HEC-RAS används för att beräkna vattendragets vattennivåer. Den andra delen av studiens syfte är att undersöka om hur framtidens klimatförändringar kommer kunna påverka det studerade området. En effekt av framtidens förändrade klimat är stigande havsnivåer som leder till ökad risk för översvämning vid kustnära områden. Till följd av dämningseffekter kommer de stigande havsnivåerna även ge ökade vattennivåer uppströms vattendragen, och beroende på vattendragens egenskaper och geometri kommer vattendrag längs med kusten att påverkas på olika sätt. För att undersöka riskerna för översvämningar i ett framtida klimat har modeller med olika klimatscenarios byggts upp där stigande havsnivåer kombinerats med flöden av varierande återkomsttider.