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

Solutions to the current calamity of fossil fuels are becoming more urgent with each moments passing. It is not news for those in technical professions as well as many others, that reserves of oil are diminishing and prices for petroleum based products are increasing. A most transparent option exists today, and is becoming exploited by many countries worldwide. This solution answers to the title of biofuels, consisting of gases, liquids and even biomass for various energy requirements. Two biofuels in particular hold precedence with regard to transportation fuels, namely biodiesel and ethanol, and have been studied in the following report. The said fuels are produced by transesterification of oils and fermentation of sugar based crops respectively, for use in transport fleets worldwide. Stockholm, Sweden is in the forefront for use of the said fuels in their public transportation sector, with nearly the entire fleet fueled with ethanol. Persistence, extensive research and unprecedented environmental support equate to the success of this fuel, which is used competitively to petroleum diesel, while including reduced environmental impacts. Other cities in Europe also have similar capacities to utilize biofuels, although some have failed to hold to this technology. Troyes, France, the home of CREIDD (Center of Research and Interdisciplinary Studies on Sustainable Development) and UTT (University of Technology of Troyes), has been further studied to produce the relative measures needed for biofuel implementation in this municipality, while generating the impacts toward the environment and municipality in the form of costs, emissions and savings. Surprisingly, and hereafter, it has been concluded that the use of biodiesel, and not ethanol like Stockholm, offers the best course of action for Troyes both economically and environmentally. Cities throughout Europe can follow suit and discover the biofuel most applicable to their locality and promote further sustainability, although the question still arises of whether biofuels are indeed sustainable. / www.ima.kth.se

This thesis project is a continuation of a project that was previously done at KTHenvironmental management course during Fall 2006 semester at Veidekke to identify the deficit and the flaws of the current way of dealing with the environmental matters.The purpose of this thesis project is to plan the environmental management system according toISO 14001 standards specifically for Veidekke Anläggning Öst AB. The first part of the work was to identify the environmental aspects that relate to the activities and the processes at Veidekke Anläggning’s projects. From these aspects, the significant environmental aspects would be identified, in order to act upon them, and minimize the environmental risks as much as possible. An environmental management system is mainly a combination of an environmental policy, environmental requirements, environmental goals, and an emergency response plan. So in order for the environmental goals to be set, an accurate identification of the aspects needs to occur before the process of building an environmental management system starts. Then proper solutions and recommendations will be provided in order to motivate the employees at Veidekke Anläggning Öst to increase their environmental awareness and to take responsibility for their actions. All employees need to undergo a series of educational courses in order to, change their behaviour towards the environment, and to take environmental responsibility for thecompany. The basic foundation to start building an environmental management system is to provide the employees with the necessary environmental knowledge, and the motivation to do the best they can. The most important factor is the willingness of the top management to change. / www.ima.kth.se

This master thesis has been carried out at Industrial Ecology at Royal Institute ofTechnology, KTH, in cooperation with Swedish Environmental Research Institute, IVL.This thesis discussed the usage of the ash from coal incineration in Wuhai, Inner Mongolia,China by studying and analyzing the fly ash from the case plant, the North Power Company.In the first part, there are some background information about the study area, like Wuhaicity and the case plant, the North Power Company. The study focused on the application ofthe fly ash as the fly ash is the main fraction of the ash from coal incineration. Besides, thecurrent situation of the coal fly ash application in whole China including some regions inChina like Shanghai and some applications of fly ash worldwide, are investigated.The chemical properties of the fly ash samples collected from the case plant have beenanalyzed in two main parts, the mass fraction and the trace elements. The concentrations ofseveral metal elements in the fly ash that have the highest toxicity have been comparedwith that in the fly ash from Shanghai and the Netherlands. The leaching possibilities of themetals from the fly ash are also compared with related Chinese standards and Europeanstandards to see if the fly ash in the North Power Company has the potential to exceed the standards. According to the natural condition in Wuhai and the properties of the fly ash, the potential application areas for the fly ash from the North Power Company are: cement andconcrete, bricks, ceramic, road construction and extraction of aluminum oxides. An evaluation of those possible applications have been made by considering theinformation from technology aspects, economical aspects, environmental effects, health andsafety effects and social aspects. Using the fly ash in cement and concrete is the most suitable application among those potential applications, and the usage of the fly ash inceramic production is not a good choice under the current situation. The other three applications are also suitable to use if some tests or pretreatments have been done. At the end, there are also some suggestions for future study and recommendations for the decisionmakers. Therefore, the order of the priority of those potential applications is as follows:Cement and concrete>Bricks and Extraction of aluminum oxides>Roadconstruction>Ceramic. / www.ima.kth.se

Companies are recognising the need for being sustainable in their approach to business. There are mounting pressures from environmentalists, NGOs and Governments for greater transparency. Awareness of company’s reputation, contribution to society, and environment are all public knowledge these days thanks to the internet and free media culture. On one hand, there are companies who are unable to find their feet in CSR and perceive it isas a ‘publicity’ tool only, overlooking many other benefits which it brings along. On the otherhand, there are companies who have taken the first step in getting involved with CSR relatedactivities, however, need guidance for further improvements with their performance measurement and reporting. This thesis aims to present CSR as an ‘umbrella’ under which many of the sustainable development issues rest. It aims to present CSR as a tool which, if utilised, can bring benefitsto companies in environmental, social and long term financially. With the help of casestudies, recommendations and suggestions are given to improve CSR policies/strategies and broaden the horizons of business. / www.ima.kth.se

This report reviewed Chinese building energy and related codes, directives and guidelines and compared them with Swedish ones. It also provides general information on residential buildings in China (area, height, layout, etc.) and describes building envelope insulation status and market there (window, exterior walls and roof) and energy related characteristics (heating, heating fee system, cooling and ventilation). This report is targeted towards governmental organizations in Wuhai city in Inner Mongolia of China since this thesis is project (Sino-Swe project) based research and Wuhai city is the place where the project is being carried out. A one week trip to Wuhai city was done during the research time and information concerning aspects such as market, energy saving status and residents’ attitudes were collected through interviews, organized meetings and on-site investigation. Data collected from national level and Wuhai city are combined to support simulation of energyperformance of a model building in Wuhai. Two tools are employed to calculate energyconsumption. One is Dest, developed by Institute of Building Environment and Building Services,Tsinghua University, Beijing, China and has been used in various prestige large structures such as State Grand Theatre. The second one is Standardized Method, proposed by Heating, ventilation and air conditioning design code. It is a traditional and simple energy calculation method and can be realized by Excel. Nowadays, instead of directly using it, its calculation concepts and steps are integrated into different commercial calculation softwares but in a more complex way. Different envelope types, heating methods, ventilation systems are evaluated and building energy consumption for heating and corresponding initial investment and operation cost are calculated. Then life cycle cost methodology is applied to compare different alternatives and those alternatives, according to their payback time, are located into different categories. From the calculation the following figure is obtained and suggestions are made. / www.ima.kth.se

Along with the rapid development of industry and agriculture, growth of population, improvement of urbanization level, China has been confronted with increasingly serious deficiency and pollution of water resource. In order to deal with the challenge as well as reduce waste discharge, it is necessary to strengthen all the possible efforts in controlling water pollution. Therefore, the control and management of water pollution is of vital significance to the development of national economy and social society, which is worth doing research on academically and practically. Water pollution management, in a sense, results from the urbanization and cosmopolitanization process. In this aspect, the European countries have acquired a lot of successful experience in water pollution control, which provides plenty of useful knowledge and reference for China’s ongoing efforts in water pollution control. This thesis, by taking a comparative analysis approach, looks into the European countries’ experience of water pollution control, makes evaluations on their managerial strategies, system and methods. Then it reviews China’s efforts on water pollution control, and analyzes the current situation of China’s water management, especially the water pollution control system of Huaihe River Basin, and as a result puts forward suggestions to improve China’s water pollution control system such as verification of property rights of water resources, enhancement of legal framework, investment and taxation policy preference, technological improvements, public participation and prevention measures. / www.ima.kth.se