In face of the climate crisis, educational responses aim at raising awareness, fostering knowledge, and encouraging theengagement of the general public. Climate change education plays an important role in the necessary individual andsocietal transformations. Playful and game-based educational approaches are increasingly used. They hold the promiseto overcome the challenges and limits of mainstream approaches. This thesis explores the case of Climate Fresk, arecently created game-based workshop, based on the latest IPCC report, which pledges to push the world into transitionby providing a better understanding and fostering action and engagement to its participants. The present researchconsists of a formative evaluation of Climate Fresk in Sweden. A framework of successful game-based approaches forclimate change education was established and guided the evaluation of Climate Fresk. After defining the intendedoutcomes of the workshops, through a focus group and interviews with the Climate Fresk facilitators, an evaluation ofthe extent to which these outcomes were achieved was carried out by interviewing thirty participants. Twoquestionnaires were used: one for the participants who had just taken part in a workshop; another for players severalmonths after their participation. The results confirmed the integration of the game-based climate change educationfeatures of the framework to a large extent. The intended outcomes, as formulated by the facilitators, about climateunderstanding, thinking skills, attitudes, emotions, engagement, were achieved to a certain degree. Increasedunderstanding of climate change and system thinking was gained for a large majority of the participants. The findingsshow that there is scope for improvement. The data collected from the players who participated several months agoshow that Climate Fresk does not solidly lead to engagement and action. Recommendations are proposed for theClimate Fresk facilitators and organisers to enhance the impact of the workshop on its participants, while fostering Climate Fresk’s capacity for change.

This study explores the potential of transdisciplinary climate fiction prototyping to create a transformative space within state-owned enterprise governance. The approach includes a thematic analysis of governance documents within the portfolio, scenario development, narrative design, participatory sessions with the department of state-owned enterprise, related ministries, and company representatives. The narrative design climate fiction, henceforth Cli-Fi, is used to highlight complexity and create an affectual relationship with the future. The main finding is uncovering a systemic closure constituted by risk aversion that locks in transformative potential of state-owned enterprise governance. The four Cli-Fi prototypes are thus built on narratives driven by different risk behavior that hinder or enable change for sustainability, and are called The Dutiful Widower, The Future Proofers, Winning Vincent, and The Untrusted Trustee. The study concludes that transdisciplinary Cli-Fi prototyping can, and perhaps should, be leveraged to create transformative spaces within organizations and to identify closures and openings for sustainable development.

With an expanded increase in consumption and production in the last decades, the Western societies’ unsustainable way of living has started to have a destructive effect on the planet. Energy use and greenhouse gas emissions linked to production and waste control in societies can be reduced immensely with fewer goods. Through the sharing economy, goods, materials and services can be utilized to the fullest, decreasing the need for more production of raw materials. Sharing has both practical and economic gain for the consumer, the community and the environment. The aim of this research is to analyze and map the present state of sharing economy within Uppsala Municipality and evaluate how to adopt and implement sharing economy from the governance perspective of Uppsala. In this case study, a document analysis, a survey and interviews are used as analytical tools to answer the three research questions; what sharing economy practices and strategies are to be found within Uppsala Municipality; which are the identified drivers, barriers and attitude towards sharing economy within the public sector of Uppsala and how sharing economy platforms and services can be implemented in Uppsala Municipality. The results show that while some sharing economy practices and strategies can be found within Uppsala Municipality, there are no clear guidelines to be found on how to work with sharing economy. The public sector is positive towards a sharing economy and wants to see more sharing alternatives. In their opinion, the main drivers to sharing economy are saving on resources, economy and energy, while the main barriers are time consumption, uncertainty in who should be responsible for these services and complication in implementation. Finally, a shared knowledge and definition on sharing economy, a justification on why sharing economy should be implemented and a collaboration where every stakeholder finds their place in the projects seem to be the main premise of implementing sharing economy on a local governance level.

Microplastics (MPs) constitute a risk to both human and environmental health. It is vital to identify sources and pathways to take the necessary action and limit the number of MPs in our environments. However, we currently have a limited understanding regarding MPs' variation with time in urban environments in an indoor setting. This knowledge gap is partly due to the absence of standard sampling procedures, and there is a need to develop reliable sampling techniques. This study evaluates the effectivity of a novel tape-lifting method developed for sampling MPs from various urban surfaces and applies this technique to measure weekly trends in artificial polymer deposition within an indoor environment at Umeå University. Two stone floor surfaces were sampled repeatedly on eight occasions over three weeks. Recovered MPs were identified in a microscope and categorized after shape: fibers or fragments. My developed tape-lifting method showed high MP recoveries (on average 100 ±4%) for the majority of the tested indoor surfaces (floors and tables). However, the method proved less functional for outdoor substrates (asphalt), where the recovery was significantly lower (on average, 48% ± 17). In my monitoring of MPs, I found that the deposition rate of fibers did not significantly differ between the two sampling sites or change over the three weeks. In contrast, MPs of fragment-type varied both between sampling sites and as a function of time. Here, the MP deposition rate was, on average, nearly two times higher at one of the sites, indicating substantial spatial variation. Regarding temporal variation, fragmented MPs showed an overall decrease in the number of deposited fragments over the three-week period. Interestingly the lack of variation in fibrous MPs indicates a dominating input source of fibers that is both homogenous for the room and static with time. In contrast, a specific source that is also time-sensitive appears to influence the dispersal pattern of fragmented MPs. My findings highlight the need to consider the temporal dimension of MP contamination and for research focusing on the relationship between fragmented MPs and their sources in indoor environments.

This master thesis examines the representation of climate justice discourses at the by various parties at the COP26 in Glasgow, 2021 and how these are manifested in the subsequent policy outcome, the Glasgow Pact. To coherently categorize the wide interpretations of climate justice, this study adopts a theoretical framework proposed by Schapper (2018), where climate justice is differentiated through international, intra-societal and intergenerational dimensions. Through the lens of critical discourse analysis, statements made at the higher-level segment of the event are analyzed according to their storylines to identify which climate justice discourses are exercised by varying actors. The sample consists of 17 statements of various countries categorized by different coalitions. In comparison, the findings indicate that the Glasgow Pact recognizes most discourses in some form, but that it sides with developed nations on account of knowledge claims, non-binding policy language and an absence of any discourse on historical responsibility or the right to use fossil fuels. Consequently, the mismatch of what is said and done reveals power imbalances at the negotiations, and therefore threaten the credibility of the COP as a fair and inclusive arena for climate negotiations.

In Stockholm, Sweden, diffuse emissions of metals have become the dominating source of copper towater. This thesis work made an attempt to link the source of copper emission and the fate of the copper in a lake. These models have been applied in the case study of Lake Råcksta Träsk and its urban drainage area in Stockholm, Sweden. The source analysis model has been adopted and modified from Cui et al (2008) and Sörme and Lagerkvist (2002) and the basic fate model has been taken and modified from Håkanson (2006) and Lindström and Håkanson (2001). For better understanding and improving the modelling, a second type of modelling approach both for source(i.e. StormTac model) and fate analyses (i.e. QWASI model) have been included in this study. The results from the different modelling approaches are compared. Models were presented in an as transparent as possible way and were connected through the urban copper load to the lake. All models were tested against previously published monitoring data. In the source analysis, the traffic and road sections emit the most of copper especially through brake linings of the vehicles. The lakemodel was evaluated using monitoring data from the 15-year period, 1991-2006. Both the water and sediment copper contents respond to a change in the copper load to the lake, but the response is slower for the sediments. Thus it is proposed that the sediment copper contents can be used to follow urban copper emissions. / <p>www.ima.kth.se</p>

The study in this thesis concerns Storglaciären, a very well known and studied glacier in northern Sweden. The glacier has been an object for research since the endof the 19th century. During the meltseason of 2012 25 dyetracing experiments were executed. These experiments were conducted to investigate the internal drainage system of Storglaciären in the lower ablation area. Similar studies were done in 1989 by Regine Hock and Roger Leb Hooke (1993). The outcome of the study in 2012 has been compared with their results to see if any changes in the drainage systemhave occurred. The results have also been compared to the results of Seaberg etal. (1988) from their experiments in 1984 and 1985. Studies of glacier behaviour are important since they have a large impact on the local and global environment. Moreover it has been observed that smaller glaciers (such as Storglaciären), that are easier to reach and to work on, have similar behaviour as bigger glaciers, making them good objects for research (Jansson, 1996). The experiments were conducted between the 6th and 24th of august and executed by first injecting dye into moulins on the glacier and then measuring the concentration of dye in the proglacial streams merging out from the front of Storglaciären. Rhodamine WT was used as dye. Storglaciären has three main pro-glacialstreams named Nordjåkk, Centerjåkk and Sydjåkk. Nordjåkk merges from the northside and the other two from the south side of the glacier front. Measurements were in the beginning taken in all of the streams but since no concentration was visible in Nordjåkk the focus was at the end of the fieldperiod only at Centerjåkk and Sydjåkk, which both had detectable dye concentrations. Both manual and automatical measurements were done. Breakthrough curves (concentration vs. time) were plotted for each experimentand for both Centerjåkk and Sydjåkk. From these curves calculations were donefollowing the methods in Willis et al. (2011). The main parameters calculatedwere: transit velocity, dispersivity and dye recovery. Breakthrough curves were also modelled for each experiment using the method in Willis et al. (1990). Overall the drainage system in the lower part of the ablation area of Storglaciärenhas not changed signicantly during the past 20 years. But the drainage systemseems to be divided into dierent parts using both a straight channel system and a distributed system. The distributed system of 2012 seems to be more homogeneous than in 1989 but whether the system is braided or consists of a linked cavity systemis hard to tell. Differences seen this year compared to previous investigations are that the transition from an early to a late season drainage system occurred later in the meltseason. The dominating subglacial stream in 2012 was Centerjåkk and not Sydjåkk as in previous investigations (Nordjåkk dominated north as before). The meltseason lasted only a few weeks in 2012 because of the cold conditions and low precipitation. This may have had a big inuence on the behaviour of the glacier.

Many studies have investigated the issue of feeding the world’s growing population from different perspectives. Conventional agricultural methods usually have small production yields while requiring large amounts of scarce and unevenly distributed resources such as farmland and water. Furthermore, although produced food may meet the demands, it is still inefficiently delivered among different regions. Urban agriculture has been proposed to produce food inside urban areas with higher yields and less resource consumption. Hydroponics is one of the urban farming methods that needs further research before being applied on large scales. This study aims to investigate the potential lettuce production using hydroponic systems to grow lettuce domestically in urban areas in Sweden to lower its lettuce import and motivate local food production to become self-sufficient. The study is performed using a literature review, theoretical design of a system, and scenario-based assessment of hydroponic lettuce production. The detailed analysis is performed via a case study of lettuce production in Uppsala municipality and two scenarios considering the reduction of lettuce import to Sweden and related challenges and opportunities of the designed system. The analyses demonstrate that the system paves the way to decrease lettuce import and dependence on trade. Therefore, applying the system increases self-sufficiency and decreases vulnerability to shocks. Nevertheless, the study does not necessarily address issues related to transportation and food miles. Moreover, finding suitable places to establish the system needs further studies.

Wetlands are crucial for respecting the planetary boundaries and reaching the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, but wetland areas in Sweden has decreased significantly. The need for restoration, stronger protection, and land-sharing opportunities requires exploration of the subsistence practices involving wetlands in the past. This thesis investigates the sustainability potential of catchwork water-meadows. An integrated landscape analysis method (ILA) using spatial targeting was designed and tested in QGIS with a range of supporting data aiming to locate previously unknown and unprotected catchwork water-meadows in Jämtland County, that could be potential restoration targets. A literature search was conducted to gather general information on catchwork water-meadows impact on climate change, biogeochemical flows, threatened species, to re-imagine social aspects, and to find morphological characteristics that could be compared to remote sensing data. The literature search revealed varieties in construction, development of theories on nutrient sources over time, a species composition with 19 species and genera present on the Red List of threatened species. It is found that novel construction of catchwork water-meadows likely increase GHG release, but restoration projects on already modified land could possibly decrease GHG output depending on the no-action scenario and use of the produced biomass. There are indications that nutrient removal is possible but experimentation and more scientific measurements are needed. Social benefits include: resilience from economic diversification and being organised as a common, production of plant biomass for various uses, community building, and knowledge production. The ILA consisted of three stages, 1. spatial targeting, 2. site interpretation, and 3. evaluation. Three potential sites were located. Indications for and against identifying these as catchwork water-meadow are presented, and refinement of the ILA to reach definite verdicts are suggested.

Renewable energy technique is increasing in popularity and usage. But the world´s current energy consumption is extensively uneven, and 1,6 billion people still live without access to electricity. The domestic work in rural areas is often very time and energy consuming; fetching water alone can take up to 5 hours or more per day. Due to gender inequality, women are the most responsible for the drudgery household work in rural areas in developing countries. Hence, women are more and worsely affected from the lack of access to electricity than men. Access to electricity can reduce the time consuming domestic chores with several hours per day. It can also benefit women´s empowerment, because all the extra time can provide new possibilities and freedoms. Rural women´s electricity needs are summarized by ENERGIA and UNDP. The needs can be divided in; mills for grinding, water pumps, indoor and street lighting and power for TV, radio, small enterprises etc. Solar power is an interesting alternative since it functions just as good off-grid and can be quickly installed. Solar powered waterpumps are a very good alternative whilst solar grinding mills are too cost intensive. Solar power provides affordable indoor and street lighting alternatives, thus street lighting can vary greatly in price. Solar power works good with smaller loads which requires constant power, such as a small refrigerator or a radio. The larger the loads, the greater the expences, so for large enterprices solar power is not yet a viable option. Hence, access to electricity is not enough, empowerment is just as important for women in order to actually gain more freedoms instead of more working hours due to extended hours of evening light.