The term Ecosystem Services describes all the direct and indirect contributions ecosystems have on human welfare. Fresh water, clean air, genetic diversity, recreation and inspiration are some examples of ecosystem services we get from nature but often take for granted. The human way of living affects our ecosystem and by transforming natural surfaces to unnatural surfaces important ecosystem and their services might be lost or hard to reconstruct. There is a growing support from the community that the value of ecosystem services should be integrated into decision-making in our society. Gällivare municipality plans for a big infrastructure investment. By knowing which ecosystem services that are important for people living in the city of Gällivare, the municipality can take the ecosystem services into consideration and optimize and reach multifunctionality in natural surfaces providing important ecosystem services. As a part of Gällivare municipality’s work to integrate ecosystem services in their infrastructure investment, this thesis studies ecosystem services during different seasons in the city of Gällivare. This master thesis examines ecosystem services in four different places in Gällivare. An assessment of important ecosystem services in every place was done based on information during a workshop with Gällivare municipality. Eleven or twelve ecosystem services in every place were considered especially important for the municipality. The prioritized ecosystem services were the cultural and the regulating services. How people in the locality experience the cultural services, recreation, mental & physical health; aesthetic appreciation, inspiration & education; tourism and spiritual experience & "sense of place" and what they think of the services' potential development in the future were further studied with a questionnaire and interviews. The regulating ecosystem service local climate regulation was further studied by calculations of the ability of vegetation and water to affect the local temperature. The ability of ecosystems to clean storm water and regulate water flows was studied by inspecting flood maps for the city of Gällivare and standard levels of pollutions in storm water from different land uses. Early in the study it was found that, during the winter season, existing ecosystem services are mostly cultural services since the ecosystem is in rest during winter and thereby can't deliver the same diversity of services as in summer. During summer season, results showed that vegetation could affect local climate by stabilizing the temperature. The vegetation also delays water flows, which is important during spring when there is a large amount of melt water and during heavy raining. The amount of pollutions in surface water is also reduced by vegetation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-267466 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Ekelund, My |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för geovetenskaper |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | UPTEC W, 1401-5765 ; UPTEC-W15050 |
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