Urban areas will play a decisive role in the sustainability of future societies. As such, there is a need to understand the processes through which cities can become more sustainable. Based on a qualitative case study of a community food waste initiative in Gothenburg, Sweden, this thesis explores the phenomenon of urban sustainability transitions in relation to learning. The thesis attempts to explain how learning at the level of socio-technical niches could be instrumental to broader systemic changes at the regime level. The theoretical framework for the thesis draws on the transactional perspective on learning developed from pragmatist educational philosophy, as well as practice theoretical approaches to studying sustainability transitions which have emerged in recent years. The empirical results gathered from the case are analysed using dramaturgical analysis and practical epistemology analysis. Based on these analyses, the thesis argues that the role and significance of learning in urban sustainability transitions can be understood in terms of educative practices, a concept which is elaborated in the discussion chapter. Thus, it is argued that learning through educative practices can contribute to urban sustainability transitions by challenging prevailing institutional norms and structures, and by establishing pathways through which unsustainable elements within the socio-technical regime can be reconfigured. / Wicked Problems and Urban Sustainability Transition

The premise of the thesis is that current food systems are unsustainable. In fact, as the global population continues to rise, food systems are under greater strain to deliver quality output in a sustainable way. In sustainable food systems, effective use of agricultural land and reducing food waste are central, as stipulated by Agenda 2030 target to reduce food waste by 50 % to 2030. Insects have gained attention for their ability to effectively convert feed, including feed from food waste, to edible products. Framed by a literature review and an analysis of food waste data from a Swedish supermarket, the ability to rear three insect species, House Cricket (Acheta Domesticus), Yellow Mealworm (Tenebrio Molitor) and Black Soldier fly (Hermetia Illucens) on food waste is examined. The three insect species with the addition of laying hens are also the grounding for evidence-based scenarios. The results indicate that the Black Solider Fly can be reared on unprocessed food waste while the House Cricket requires food waste treated for higher levels of protein and phosphorus and the Yellow Mealworm food waste supplemented by external products such as yeast, carrots or wheat bran. The result from the scenarios shows that substantial amounts of edible output can be produced by providing the insects and laying hens vegetable food waste from the supermarket. The conclusion of this thesis highlights the potential of using insects and laying hens as feed converters in integrated production systems to recover energy and nutrients from food waste and thereby contribute to a food system that produces more output using less land and with less negative environmental impact.

Ancient DNA (aDNA) is a useful tool for retrospective paleoenvironmental studies. Paleosols formed in Arctic environments constitute a potential archive of aDNA from terrestrial organisms living in past environments, given that the cold and dry climate prevailing at high latitudes favors DNA preservation and hamper post-depositional mobility of deposited fragments. However, to what extent aDNA is preserved in old buried soil layers (paleosol layers) are not well known. This study asses to what extent DNA older than 100 years is present in a paleosol profile from southwest Greenland. My main hypothesis was that aDNA from both plants and animals could be extracted from old buried soil layers. I found that oldest studied soil layers were more than 800 B.P. yr old. These old layers contained DNA from both plants and animals. The clean sampling protocol used showed no signs of contamination, suggesting that the DNA was from soil layers and not from modern contaminants. I conclude that my hypothesis seems valid and that a majority of the analyzed plant and animal DNA is ancient. Indeed, aDNA could be used to infer species presence in past paleoenvironments and widen our knowledge regarding how Arctic organism coped with climatic perturbations and thus, improve our understanding how they will respond to future climatic change.

Delta regions are typically characterized by their high population density, low elevation, and risk of flooding. Long term planning and preparation is needed to mitigate the adverse effects of floods. Disaster management planning and flood protection measures require information about urbanization patterns, but this information is lacking in many parts of the world. Global satellite data could potentially aid or replace local urbanization data in such data scarce areas. This master thesis assesses the suitability of two global satellite datasets to serve as proxies for urbanization in flood prone areas: the Global Human Settlement (data for 1975, 1990, 2000 and 2014) and stable Nighttime Lights data series (annual data, 1992-2013). The assessment is performed through comparison of spatial-temporal urbanization trends of the global datasets with a previous study performed in the Netherlands using detailed local data. These spatial-temporal trends involve the share or urban area that is situated in flood prone zones and the average inundation depth. Through analysis based on Geographic Information Systems it was found that the Global Human Settlement data series indicates a stable increase in the percentage of urban area in flood prone zones from 31.60% in 1975 to 36.54% in 2014. Potentially, this increase results from the flood protection measures installed between 1954 and 1997. The Nighttime Lights data series shows values of around 36% throughout its time period, with no clear increase or decrease. These values are on average 15-17% higher over the whole time series than the values found with the use of the local data. The Global Human Settlements dataset shows values for the average inundation depth from 1.47m in 1975 to 1.72m in 2014, similar to the local data. The increase could be explained by the fact that only areas with higher inundation depths are available for urbanization. The Nighttime Lights does not show a clear trend with values ranging from 1.52m to 1.70m and large annual variation. Overall, the suitability of the Global Human Settlement dataset is higher than the stable Nighttime Lights dataset for this study area as it shows values more similar to the local data and does not require prerequisite threshold analysis, which is the case for the Nighttime Lights data.

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For the first time in history, the global urban population now exceeds the global rural population, meaning that more than 50 % of the world’s population now live in cities. Much attention has been paid to the discourse of sustainable development during the last decades, however, many environmental and social scientists point to an increasing problematic realted to climate change. Greehouse gas emissions are rising, water levels are rising and drought periods are becoming longer, and urban areas are becoming more and more populated. Due to an increasing urbanisation, cities now have the highest demand, compared to rural areas, for food, water, energy and healthcare. At the same time, cities are the biggest threats when it comes to environmental impacts, being responsible for 75 % of all resource consumption and 70 % of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions. Drawing from sustainability transition theory, new modes of political governance theory and finally, pragmatist educational theory, this paper attempts to analyze the type of learning taking place in political spaces that exist within an institutional void. Learning, as a concept, is in this paper relating both to the type or learning the participants in the case study are experiencing, as well as what society can learn concerning Urban Sustainability Transitions (USTs). The aim of this paper is to explore theoretically and empirically how political spaces of USTs may function as educative spaces. It poses as its research question: How can pragmatist educational theory be used to understand transition for sustainability in institutional voids? As a case study, Housing Roar Uppsala is investigated as a political space where learning occurs. Two meetings have been recorded and four semi- structured interviews have been made in order to analyze the conversations using Practical Epistemology Analysis. A dramaturgical analysis has also been made in order to understand the setting and staging in which the meetings took place. The paper identifies as its results that there is a lingering gap, a lack of knowledge, occurring throughout the meetings, which in turn leads to another gap: that nothing is happening within the network. Furthermore, the ultimate purpose of the network does not always correlate with the proximate purposes of the participants. This is a source for the lingering gap. Through these findings, this paper suggests that the structure of the meetings might not always be the most beneficial one when trying to transition into sustainability, however, it might be the only one participants have when faced with complex, wicked issues. Wicked issues are problems that do not have a simple, single solution. It also finds that the type of learning taking place within the network might be a negotiation of purposes between participants. Finally, the paper concludes that, in relation to USTs, the type of learning that is taking place is that perhaps a totally open, nonhierarchical, network-type organization in a completely open setting, that bans political figures and private companies from entering into the conversation is not the most successful way of reaching sustainability.

The tourism industry is at a pivotal point in time, where the potential and threats associated with the industry have gained global attention. While the field provides numerous development opportunities by being one of the largest global industries, the tourism industry’s contribution to universal threats such as global warming and climate change has been acknowledged. As a response, the industry and academia have experienced a shift towards discourses of sustainable tourism, or more recently responsible tourism, where stakeholders aim to embark on a path of holistic sustainability. The global significance of tourism’s potential to foster sustainable development has further been recognized by the assignment of 2017 as the International year of Sustainable Tourism for Development. At the core of the sustainable tourism debate lies the notion of responsibility, particularly the notion of various stakeholders’ responsibility for sustainability within tourism. Within this paradigm, consumers play a central role, as consumers can guide industry action with their travel related choices. Yet, there is a notable discrepancy between consumer attitudes about sustainability and their travel related behaviour and the disparity begs the question of how consumers perceive their own responsibility for sustainability in a tourism context. This study set out to explore the emerging discourse of responsibility for sustainability within tourism by examining how the notion has been addressed, constructed and framed within academia and the industry, with a particular interest in the framing of consumer responsibility for sustainability. Seven themes with additional subthemes of notions about responsibility for sustainability were identified through a literature review consisting of 132 peer-reviewed journal articles and two book chapters. Furthermore, an interpretive content analysis of the recently launched UNWTO Responsible Traveller campaign was carried out. The findings suggest that responsibility for sustainability within tourism has emerged as its own, distinct discourse characterized by an ambiguous and complex nature where the notion of responsibility is influenced by the surrounding context, prevailing social norms and individual identity. While responsibility for sustainability is recognized as the responsibility of all tourism stakeholders, the results suggest that consumers in particular abrogate themselves from a responsibility for sustainability in a tourism context and consequently, the industry is seen to lie in a state of lock-in. The findings indicate that there is a need to re-establish how and by whom responsibility for sustainability is constructed and framed within tourism, while notions of sustainable lifestyles and global citizenship should be fostered together with new social norms that challenge the prevailing status quo.

Glaciers are known to be prone to climate change. The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China, has approximately 20,000 glaciers, which accounts for half number of glaciers in China. One of important function of glacier is that it provides meltwater, therefore, the glacier response to a warming temperature in this area is becoming critical to be investigated in relation to water sustainable development. The Ürümqi Glacier No.1 (UG1), as one of the most important glaciers, has a dominant role of providing meltwater for the capital city, Ürümqi. In this thesis, the Distributed Enhanced Temperature Index Model (DETIM) was employed, and calibrated to perform UG1’s historical discharge pattern. Then the calibrated discharge model was grafted to future climate projection of four Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) from fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in order to investigate UG1’s water supply potential in the future. Moreover, UG1’s water supply role was discussed under a dynamic interaction between water supply and human society in the end. The result showed that the computation meltwater volume is between 121 million m³ to 131 million m³ in 35 years, from 2016 to 2050.

Stockholm stad är inne i en expansiv fas. En växande befolkning ökar inte bara behovet av ett mer ansvarsfullt markanvändande utan också en välfungerande infrastruktur. Med avseende på detta så har det de senaste åren skett och fortsätter ske, en rad större projekt som inkluderar arbete både direkt i och i nära anslutning till berg. Detta ställer höga krav på förståelse för det berg man jobbar i och därför utförs noggranna geologiska undersökningar innan ett projektarbete tar vid. Denna studie fokuserar på två sådana områden där mycket infrastrukturell aktivitet i berg har förekommit de senaste åren. Undersökningsområde nummer 1 är Stocksund och innehåller data som tagits fram i samband med utbyggnaden av elnätet i projekt City link. Område nummer 2 är Slussen på Södermalm med information som erhållits i samband med ombyggnationen av trafikplatsen. Då omfattande förundersökningar och kartläggningar har gjorts för respektive område har redan befintliga data kunnat användas på nytt i detta arbete. Studien har som syfte att undersöka tidigare förkastningar och deras rörelseriktningar i området. För att göra detta har borrkärnor från respektive lokal analyserats för att hitta rörelseindikatorer som kan påvisa hur förkastningen såg ut när den skedde. Slickenside är en typ av rörelseindikator som kan användas för detta ändamål. I varje borrkärna hittades fem stycken ytor som uppvisade slickenside och som därför har undersökts vidare. / The city of Stockholm is in a phase of expansion. A growing population does not only increase the need of a more responsible usage of land areal but also the need of a high functioning infrastructure. Due to this development a lot of large-scale projects including work in direct and in close contact to rock have been performed or are currently underway. This demands a great deal of knowledge on the certain rock-types involved in said projects and therefore thorough geological investigation takes places before any project can start. This study will focus on two of these areas where a lot of infrastructural activity in rocks have taken place during recent years. Examination area one is in Stocksund and contains data that was maintained in connection with the expansion of the power grid called project “City link”. Area two is located in Slussen, Södermalm where the information comes from the major reconstruction of the traffic juncture. Since several investigations and surveys have been conducted, old data from earlier projects has proven useful for this study. The study aims to investigate previous faults and their sense of movement in the area. In order to do so, drill cores from each site have been analyzed in order to find sense indicators that can provide information about the fault. Slickenside is a kinematic indicator that can be used for this. Each area had one drill core and in each of them five slickensides were identified and examined further.

The growing need for reducing the negative impacts of climate change and ensuring a constant and environmentally friendly energy supply, led the way to the exploitation of renewable energy sources. Canada has already acknowledged this trend by incorporating more power from renewables on its energy mix. Similarly, Nova Scotia has started an ambitious energy program in which the substitution of most of the fossil fuels by wind energy, will play a significant factor. The purpose of this research is to investigate all suitable locations for wind energy development in the province of Nova Scotia, under the scope of minimizing environmental impacts, increasing social acceptance and maximizing energy production. This spatial analysis is performed through the combination of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and a Multi Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA). The analysis of the province was based on the preferences of wind experts and administration authorities, which formed the weights assigned on eight (8) evaluation criteria. The extract of the relative weights was succeeded by using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), while their spatial dimensions were expressed by GIS software. The above procedure was possible through the application of a methodology where exclusion areas were found on the first place and the remaining areas were assessed on their level of suitability. The implementation of the GIS-MCDA methodological framework indicates that, despite the exclusion of a significant part of the province, there is still enough space to develop wind energy. The applied methodology and relevant results could be used as a Decision-Making tool by planning authorities, wind developers, and stakeholders.