Part 1. Introduction This chapter outlines the broad field of study and then introduces the research problems addressed within this thesis. It provides a thesis outline and describes the intended audience for the thesis. 1.1. Nature of problem At the global level, recently tourism business has yet considered as one of the largest industries. It produces 5.5% of global GDP and employs 212 million people, and accordingly to the World Resources Institute, tourism overall has shown 4% growth per annum [WTO, 2001]. In 2020 total turnover from international tourism (excl. inside) is projected to reach 2 trillion US dollars, as a result Global Domestic Product by tourism will practically double. Requirements to implement sustainable management for this large industry are becoming important challenges to achieve global development aims for society. Tourism is defined often as a travel with recreational and educational aims. Such traveling has a number of close relations with environment. Transportation and consumption of tourism services is an important aspect of adverse environmental impact, as time progresses, it is assumed that the extent of tourism will grow [WTO, 2007] and become one of the main categories of environmental impacts among anthropogenic environmental pressures. Additionally, tourism has a major impact on local communities in tourist destinations. It can be a significant source of income and employment for local people, yet also pose a threat to an area’s social fabric, natural and cultural heritage, upon which it ultimately depends, however if tourism is well planned and managed it can be a driving force for natural and cultural conservation. Moreover, much tourism has remained a destructive force for natural areas, often in combination with detrimental socioeconomic effects for the communities within which it operates. These factors have led to recognition of the tourism sector’s need to incorporate the principles of sustainable development. Additionally, accordingly with the prognoses made by WTO, CIS and Eastern Europe is considered as the region with the fastest growth rates over the 2000-2020 period for the tourism industry [WTO, 2001]. This is mainly due to the economical growth in these countries and Western Europe, the biggest world consumer of tourism products and services. However, in the region there is a lack of experience of visitor managing due to relatively short time of tourism practices; and problem of the managing tourism is becoming actual and central for these trends. Tourism has, in recent years, received increasing attention as a low-impact, non-consumptive development option, in particular for developing countries. This positive view contrasts with the fact that major parts of the tourist industry have remained harmful to the environment and that some aspects, like the use of energy and its global consequences have virtually been excluded from the discussion on sustainable tourism development [Gössling, 2000] Tourism growth includes a wide range of recreational activities. And it is evidently that the tourism based on protected area is also becoming more popular. The world in the future will provide a wide penetration of technology into all spheres of life. Therefore, it will become possible to live with limited exposure to other people and nature; and in consequence, people will crave the human relations and nature landscapes, so, nature5 based tourism will be the principal means through which they seek to achieve this. Protected areas will play tourist role, as well as a protective role for increasing industrial pressure on the human environment. At the same time, living species are threatened as never before, as the protected areas are exposed to the pressures of unsustainable development. It is mandatory to use the precautionary approach concerned about tourism in protected areas, given the risk of damage and destruction to this unique natural resource. Visitor impact management is ever more important as the number of tourists increases, and their distribution is often concentrated in major tourism destinations in ecologically vulnerable areas Although Belarus legislation has the list of general aims for development tourism in sustainable way and especially in protected area, there is apparently lacking of necessary investigations and management practices in the tourism activity. Mostly all protected area does not have sustainable tourism practices and management procedures. In accordance with the last report made by UNECE in 2005 there is still no one investigations concerned tourism impacts over protected areas in Belarus as well as certification papers that encompass performance indicators for implementation of eco labels in tourism do not still exist. Therefore, the study will add some practical data concerned these aspects and try to make a review on current conditions for effectively tourism developments within study areas and for further investigations. 1.2. Aims, Objectives Literature sources and practical examples indicate that in some cases tourism may provide new alternatives to develop visitor experiences with greater economical incentives and less environmental burden. However, it is unclear which drivers influence Belarusian tourism in protected areas, and what areas should be the focus of future research. Therefore, the aim of this work is to make effort to determine the management systems within the Belarusian national parks (the National Park “Belavezhskaya Pushcha” and the Reserve “Berezinsky), accordingly a sustainable approach with accent on monitoring tourism phase, as a decision making tool for sustainable tourism management and improvement of local conditions. There is a certain range of objectives to achieve the main goal which is listed below: - To identify key principles of the management systems within study areas; - To identify regional and local features of existing management practices; - To find the advantages and disadvantages of current tourism trends within the considered areas; - To explore a system of monitoring related to sustainable perspective; / www.ima.kth.se

The Ili-Balkhash basin (IB basin) is a large freshwater system, covering 413 000 km2 in Kazakhstan, China and Kyrgyzstan. The main part of the watershed is situated in Kazakstan (85%) and a smaller part in northwestern China (15 %). The Kazakhstan's part of the IB basin embraces the territory of the Almaty region and Xinijang region. The water of the western lake Balkhash is slightly salty (1,2 %), while the eastern part has a considerably higher salt contamination (3,9 %). The lake has a surface area of over 16 000 km2 and a length of 600 km. The average depth of the lake is six metres and its maximum depth reaches 26 metres. There are three main rivers flowing into the lake: Ili River, with a large delta, the Karatal River, with a smaller delta, and the Aqsu River. The biggest of them being the Ili river - already influenced by a reservoir created upstream and heavy agricultural use - which flows from China. Chinese authorities intend to make an increased use of the Ili river and thus China will come to have a strong influence on the Balkhash lake. The Xinijang region is highly populated and the population rate is increasing significantly through the combination of natural population increase and internal migration from the eastern part of China. The lake is very shallow and very sensitive to changes in water transport. Current development poses a severe threat to the watershed and specifically to lake Balkhash, since more and more water is diverted from the rivers for societal use, mainly agricultural irrigation. At the moment, the lake and the whole watershed suffer from ecological problems that mostly have been created artificially, by human hands. The Kapchagai reservoir, built along the middle reaches of the Ili River in 1966, and used for water storage since 1970, allowed the development of irrigation agriculture along the lower reaches of the river. The reservoir serves for hydroelectric power generation and for irrigation water supply. Since its inauguration, water use has increased along the lower reaches of the Ili River. In addition, increasing pollution emissions and an increased salinity of the lake water have seriously affected the fishing industry and diminished the surrounding habitats. So far, no action has been taken to reverse the ecological damage that the lake has suffered. In a worst scenario, a development similar to that for the Aral Sea can be foreseen. Future water management in the region will require improved water management policies, improved planning of water resources management, improved monitoring of different activities and their impact and an increased regional international cooperation, mainly between Kazakhstan and China. The Thesis is a compilation of information on the past and present situation of the IB basin, ending in a discussion of the sustainability of three future scenarios developed: (i) a business as usual scenario where there is a possibility that the lake will be divided into two separated small lakes, (ii) a non-conscious development with rapid economic growth scenario, where we risk the same ecological disaster as that happened to the Aral Sea and (iii) a sustainable development scenario, where the Balkhash lake can be saved. The discussion ends in the conclusion that there is a risk that a non-conscious development based on a rapid economic growth will result in severe long-term impacts and non-sustainable development in the IB basin / www.ima.kth.se

I april 1999 satte Sveriges regering upp 15 miljömål (utökades till 16 under 2005) vilka strävar efter att lösa Sveriges stora miljöproblem till nästa generation. Det första miljömålet är ”begränsad klimatpåverkan” och ett av dess delmål är att utsläppen av växthusgaser under perioden 2008-2012 skall vara minst 4 procent lägre än utsläppen var år 1990. Ett sätt att minska utsläppen av växthusgaser är att byta ut de fossila fordonsbränslena mot förnyelsebara. Inom EU är målsättningen att andelen förnyelsebart bränsle skall vara 5,75 procent av allt fordonsdrivmedel år 2010 och 20 procent år 2020. Etanolinblandningen uppgår till ca hälften av de förnyelsebara bränslena pga. att all 95-oktanig bensin i Stockholms län innehåller 5 procent etanol. Det bränsle som ökade mest i Stockholm under perioden 2001- 2006 är dock biogasen. Detta är bra då biogasen klassas som det miljövänligt bästa fordonsbränslet. Detta examensarbete utförs för Stockholm Vatten AB som i dagsläget producerar biogas från det slam som blir restprodukten vid rening av avloppsvatten. Syftet för examensarbete är att undersöka hur stor metanpotentialen är i detta slam samt att granska den nyinköpta laborationsutrustning, ”BCS-CH4-biogas” med vilken försöken görs. Slammet som beskickas till rötkammarna vid Henriksdals reningsverk består av primärslam, förtjockat överskottslam samt fettslam. En sammansättning av detta slam, med värden från år 2006, exklusive fettslammet gav en biogas- respektive metangasproduktion på 0,50 Nm3 biogas/kg VSin respektive 0,30 Nm3 CH4/VSin efter 35 dagar. Ett jämförande försök vid JTI med samma sammansättning av slam, taget vid samma tidpunkt, gav en biogas- respektive metangasproduktion på ca 0,65 Nm3 biogas/kg VSin respektive ca 0,33 Nm3 CH4/kg VSin efter 31 dagar. En jämförelse mellan dessa två metoder och utrustningar gav följande fördelar och nackdelar för BCS-utrustningen: Fördelar - Enkel att handskas med, när man väl lärt sig - Sköter sig själv, tar inte mycket tid - Mycket data att laborera med - Relativt robust - Lätt att starta upp och avsluta - God repeterbarhet inom ett försök Nackdelar - Kan köra väldigt få flaskor åt gången, max åtta per BACVis, jämfört med JTI där man kan köra så många man hinner analysera. - Kan inte köra försöken lika länge som Hansen då flödesmätaren inte klarar mindre flöden än 1 ml per timme, varför de slutgiltiga värdena antagligen är lite mindre än de skulle kunna vara. Efterrötning av rötslammet från primärslambehandlingen på Bromma reningsverk gav en ökning på 8,6 % på biogasproduktionen från primärslammet räknat på medelvärden från år 2006 / In April 1999 the Swedish government established 15 environmental goals (increased to 16 during 2005) that strive to solve Sweden’s largest environmental issues until the next generation. The first of these goals are “limited climate change” and one of its sub goals is that the greenhouse gas emissions should decrease by 4 percent, compared to the emissions of 1990, during the period 2008-2012. One way of decreasing the emissions of greenhouse gas is to shift from fossil fuels to renewable. Within the European Union the goal is that the portion of renewable fuels should amount to 5, 75 percent of all fuels for vehicles before 2010 and 20 percent by the year 2020. In the district of Stockholm all of the 95-octane petrol is mixed with 5 percent ethanol, and this sums up to half of all the renewable fuels used in Stockholm. However biogas is the fuel that increased the most in Stockholm during the period 2001-2006. This is good because the biogas is classified as the most environmental vehicle fuel. This master thesis is written for Stockholm Vatten AB who amongst other things clean the sewage water and from the sludge they produce biogas. The purpose of this master thesis is to examine the methane potential of different sewage sludge’s and to develop a method to do this with new laboratory equipment, “BCS-CH4-biogas”, designed for this function. The sewage sludge in the Henriksdal waste-water treatment plant is composed of primary, secondary (biosludge) and external fat sludge. A composition of this sludge given as a mean value from 2006, excluding the fat sludge, gave a biogas and methane production of 0,50 Nm3 biogas/kg VSin and 0,30 Nm3 CH4/kg VSin after 35 days. As a comparison the same sludge was digested at JTI and they got a biogas and methan potential of 0,65 Nm3 biogas/kg VSin and 0,33 Nm3 CH4/kg VSin after 31 days. An assessment of these to methods and equipments gave “BCS-CH4-biogas” the following advantages and disadvantages: Advantages: - Easy to handle ones you know how it works - Takes care of it self, doesn’t take a lot of time - A lot of data - Relatively robust - Easy to start and shut down - Repeatable results Disadvantages: - One can run very few flasks at a time, maximum eight per BACvis, compared to JTI where you can run as many flasks as you have time to check on. - It is not possible to run the experiment all the way till there is no organic matter left at all since the flow counter doesn’t work when the flow count is lower than 1 mL per hour. Post digestion of digested primary sludge from Bromma waste-water treatment plant showed an increase of 8,6 % of the biogas production, counted from the mean value of year 2006. / www.ima.kth.se

Detta examensarbete, på uppdrag av Swedbank och med handledning från enheten för Industriell ekologi på KTH, jämför kort- och kontantbetalningssystemet i Sverige ur ett miljöperspektiv. Studien görs som en jämförande livscykelanalys mellan de bägge systemen. Resultaten från studien är endast relativa och inte absoluta. Det går därför inte att säga något om kort- eller kontantbetalningssystemets absoluta miljöpåverkan utan endast skillnader i miljöpåverkan systemen emellan. Livscykelanalysen har genomförts i enighet med rådande ISO-standard (14040:2006, 14044:2006) och har granskats av Lars-Gunnar Lindfors, forskningsdirektör på IVL Svenska Miljöinstitutet. För att rättvist kunna jämföra de bägge betalsystemen har den funktionella enhet en transaktion valts. En transaktion med kontanter som betalningsmedel jämförs alltså med en transaktion med bankkort. Eftersom uppgifter om kombinationen av sedlar och mynt för en genomsnittlig betalning saknas redovisas resultaten som en jämförelse mellan kortbetalning och kontantbetalning med sju olika belopp och sex kombinationer av sedlar och mynt för vart och ett av dessa belopp. För de kombinationer av sedlar och mynt som valts för att representera den funktionella enheten visar resultaten att kortbetalning har mindre påverkan på växthuseffekt och övergödning än kontantbetalning. Det motsatta gäller för försurning och marknära ozon, då kontantbetalning har mindre påverkan. Den osäkerhetsanalys av resultaten som gjorts med hjälp av Monte Carlo simulering visar på låg variation och därmed säkra resultat. De osäkerheter som finns i resultaten beror på att det genomsnittliga antalet transaktioner per valör och livstid inte är säkert fastställt. En analys av värsta fall, normalfall och bästa fall för antalet transaktioner per valör och livstid visar att detta har stor inverkan på resultatet, i synnerhet värsta fall scenariot för kontanter. Ett framtidsscenario har ställts upp baserat på prognoser från inblandade parter om förändringar i systemen. Framtidsscenario talar starkt till kortets fördel, då kortsystemets minskade miljöpåverkan är klart större än minskningen för kontantsystemet. / www.ima.kth.se

SRV återvinning AB is a joint-stock waste company located in the south of Stockholm. Since the first operation, three landfills have been practiced successively. The landfill generates about 200,000 to 250,000 cubic meters of leachate per year. An on-site leachate treatment plant consists of sequencing batch reactor (SBR) and constructed wetland was build for Landfill III. The research was to find out: - the capacity and efficiency of the existing on-site leachate treatment plant; - to analyse the costs and environmental benefits of different alternatives; and - using the above results, to assess and suggest supplementary methods to treat total landfill leachate concerning the site-specific conditions. This thesis contains a literature review of leachate production and composition as well as leachate treatment technologies. The technologies are described, evaluated or compared. The contents of this thesis divided into 11 chapters. Various calculations and assumptions that have been developed for effective controlling and treating leachate from landfills. Chapter 1 is devoted to basic facts of the leachate problems at SRV återvinning AB. Chapter 2 presented the methodologies that have been set up for solutions and suggestions. Chapter 3 provides a general background of the generation and compositions of waste leachate. A general overview of leachate treatment methods and systems is presented in Chapter 4. Costs of different leachate treatment methods is also exhibited. Chapter 5 provides a detailed current situation review of SRV återvinning AB on landfilling site, leachate quality and quantity and the existing treatment plant. Chapter 6 showed the previous application experience from other treatment plant. The calculation and comparison procedure for the capacity and efficiency of the plant at the landfill is presented in Chapter 7. Different alternatives to solve the leachate problem concerning the site-specification are proposed in Chapter 8. Their applicability, effectiveness are analyzed. Chapter 9 provides detailed discussion of alternatives and calculation procedure. After the conclusion of the thesis, recommendations for the further work are presented. This thesis will provide SRV återvinning AB different alternatives to solve leachate problems. Finally, considering the site-specification, economic perspective and environmental benefits, applying reverse osmosis after SBR as final step; the combination of aerated lagoon, sand filter and soil infiltration are proposed. Furthermore, the control of leachate production is also taken into account. Eventually, recommendations for the further work were presented. / www.ima.kth.se

In this study, energy analysis of Upplands Väsby municipality was carried out with the aim of reducing the CO2 emissions in compliance with Kyoto Protocol. In order to achieve that the inventory of the current fossil fuel use, analysis of possible energy saving measures, and inventory of current potential for biomass production was studied respectively.The annual energy consumption according to different sectors which are mainly housing,transportation, public activities, construction, agriculture, forestry and fishery wasinvestigated and found as 1000 GWh. Depending on the emission factors for each fuel type,corresponding CO2 emissions were calculated. These calculations showed that 85% of thetotal CO2 emissions are caused by oil and diesel which are mainly used in transportation. The emissions from electricity and district heating came out to be negligible compared to transportation because of renewable energy use in production. Thus, depending on the results of energy analyses, the main priority was set as transportation for CO2 emission reduction measures.The intention of Upplands Väsby municipality is first to implement efficient energy use rather than CO2 reduction or the production of the renewable fuels within the municipality. The possible energy efficiency and conservation opportunities were discussed and identified intwo different perspectives; the tactical perspective that will cover the first 3 to 5 years and thestrategical perspective for a longer period of 25 years. For the first years of energy efficiencyprogram, the main objective was set to be reaching some amounts of energy savings by the easiest changes possible and advertising that to the public to gain their support and cooperation in the long term. On the other side, for the strategical perspective, the mainobjective must be reducing the CO2 emissions as much as possible and establishing a sustainable energy system depending on renewable sources.For the production of renewable fuels, biomass was preferred as the energy source as more than half of the Upplands Väsby municipality is covered with forests and farmlands. In the calculations, only the municipally owned lands were taken into consideration and privately owned lands were excluded. Furthermore, out of the land that the municipality owns, the forest lands were excluded from the biomass calculations with an aim of reserving the forests for recreational and natural conservation purposes. In the preliminary estimation in this study,the possible yields of biomass per hectare and year were used to reach the total amount of bioenergy that can be produced. Since growing different kinds of energy crops will result with different yields of dry biomass per hectare and year, the most appropriate crops for the Svealand region were identified depending on the previous researches. The possible amount of bio energy that can be produced was calculated for willow, straw, ley crop, rapeseed, wheatand reed canary grass. As a result, it is seen that whatever the crop is chosen the average yield that can be obtained from the farmlands is around 30 GWh per year.After the energy balance, efficiency options and biomass estimation; the results from thesethree parts were combined and the possible CO2 reduction values for the next 25-30 years were estimated. In order to do that, different scenarios were considered such as replacing fossil fuels with energy from biomass, increasing energy savings and reducing fuel use in transportation. From the fossil fuel replacement scenarios, replacement of heating oil appearsto be the most feasible option since the amount of energy than can be produced from biomass exactly matches the amount of heating oil used in the municipality and it is much easier thandistrict heating and fuel replacements. From energy saving scenarios, the results for electricitysavings are negligible compared to other options as a result of environmentally friendly electricity production in majority of companies in Sweden. Hence buying electricity from supplier companies with lower CO2 emissions gives more reductions in emissions than energysavings. The last scenario, which is reduction of fuel consumption, appears to be the bestoption among the others, because it results in higher CO2 reductions. Advances in technology and growing attention to environmental issues is likely to simplify the application options interms of changing the transportation patterns of the public by encouraging them to use ratherpublic transport or car polls, environmentally friendly cars, and etc. As a result, combiningdifferent scenarios, the maximum amount of CO2 reduction together with energy savings was calculated to be around 26% for Upplands Väsby municipality.This study revealed the deficiencies in organization and systematic data collection in the municipality levels and the need to establish a methodology for inventory and follow-up ofenergy use, production and related environmental effects.In conclusion, the main target of the Upplands Väsby municipality should be implementing amethodology for systematically collecting data on the energy use and CO2 discharges indifferent sectors of the Upplands Väsby economy, preferably using a life-cycle perspective. A second important aim should be to focus on energy saving measures, especially in the transportation and housing areas. A third interesting possibility is to support initiatives aimingof encouraging municipal and private land owners to contribute to energy production. / www.ima.kth.se

The Swedish Polar Research Secretariat wants to compile all data from the Swedishenvironmental monitoring programme in Antarctica and present it using a Geographical Information System, GIS, in order to get a better follow-up on performed activities. The assignment of this master’s thesis has been to build a database containing geographic information for the areas around the Swedish research stations Wasa and Svea in Dronning Maud Land. The geodatabase will serve as a platform for future GIS-applications used by theSwedish Polar Research Secretariat.The work is divided into three parts, project planning, project development and an analysis. Apart of the project planning consisted of a survey of the environmental monitoring programmeand the existing data. A number of shortcomings in the existing data were discovered duringthe survey, it was therefore decided to amend the environmental monitoring programme andupdate the data handling methods in order to get better-suited data to use in a GIS.The choice of GIS-software fell on ArcGIS ArcView 9.2 from ESRI and data from theAntarctic Digital Database was used as a basemap. Additional data from the Antarctic DigitalDatabase was used in order to build the database. A file geodatabase structure was chosen which consists of a number of feature datasets containing all the geographical information.An analysis and a discussion about the existing monitoring programme have been performed and proposals on how to improve the monitoring programme have been presented. / www.ima.kth.se

China is the most populous country in the world and has an increasing economy. A growingeconomy enhances the electricity requirement, product demands and so on, which affects both the surrounding environment but also the global environment.Wuhai is an industrial city and the most polluted city in Inner Mongolia, China. Numerous amounts of the industries are lacking in the emission treatment and the PM10 is more then 10 times the allowed amount of European Union.This master thesis is a part of a bigger project, a corporation between IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute Ltd and Environmental Protection Bureau in Wuhai.The Coke Company Huaxi Jiohua Ltd. was founded 1992, and has a producing capability of300.000 tons coke per year. The treatment station is a model of an ASP, without a sludge recycling and a sludge thickener instead of sedimentation basin. The treatment efficiency is failing in phenol removal.The aim of this thesis is to perform a feasible study of the wastewater treatment methods foran improvement of the separation of pollutions in coke wastewater and to give a proposal forimprovement of energy efficiency from wastewater treatment.Treatment efficiency of methods such as A2/O, A/O, SBR, and ASP was taken inconsideration.Due to the lack of basic treatment, a first suggestion is to optimize the biological parameters,and introduce sludge recycling to the system together with either a following sedimentationpool or a MBBR as a pre-treatment step.To gain energy from the wastewater treatment station, a replacing of the current aerator system in the aeration unit to fine bubble diffusers and introduce a heat exchanger in the cooling of gas step could be done. / www.ima.kth.se

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Eutrofiering är ett stort problem för Östersjön där den största tillförseln av näringsämnen kommer som diffusa utsläpp. I Östersjön leder eutrofieringen till ökad tillväxt och algblomningar. Den ökade tillväxten leder även till grumling av vattnet vilket försvårar för makroalger, samt till bottendöd då stora mängder organiskt material faller ner på botten och måste brytas ned med syreförbrukning och svavelbildning som konsekvens. På västkusten, utanför Långevik vattenreningsverk, bedrivs musselodling i syfte att renavattnet från kväve. Det är ett alternativ till utbyggnad av kvävereduktionssteget i reningsverket. Syftet med den här rapporten är att undersöka om det är möjligt att genom musselodling minska kvävebelastningen i Östersjön. Den tittar på praktiska och ekonomiska effekterrörande odling och avsättning av musslorna. Analysen visar att de metoder och material som används på Västkusten skulle kunna användas i Östersjön. De största skillnaderna är att musslorna, på grund av den låga salthalten i Östersjön, växer långsammare och blir mindre. Detta leder till att det jämfört med Västkusten kommer att krävas en större odlingsareal. Eftersom musslorna blir så små kommer det inte att gå att sälja dem till humankonsumtion. Det går dock bra att göra antingen djurfoder eller gödningsmedel av dem. Av dessa två alternativ är djurfoder det mest intressanta. Slutsatsen blir att det visserligen finns åtskilliga praktiska frågor att hantera, men musselodling som metod för kväverening fungerar även i Östersjön. / www.ima.kth.se