Browsing by study line "Miljöförändring"

Climate change has exacerbated extreme weather events. According to climate scenarios, temperatures will rise and heat periods will become more common also in Finland. These heat periods worsen the urban heat island phenomenon which is known to have negative impacts on human well-being. The impacts of the urban heat island phenomenon can be reduced through careful urban planning, adaptation policies and economic investments. Adaptation to climate change can be monitored through indicators but research and development on adaptation indicators has been largely absent. The development of adaptation monitoring indicators is particularly important in order to ensure the long-term success of the city's adaptation efforts and whether adaptation is moving towards the desired goals. This thesis asks the following research question with the help of a literature review, a focus group discussion and a questionnaire: what kind of indicators can be used to monitor and evaluate adaptation to the urban heat island phenomenon in Helsinki? With the help of the literature review and New York Climate Change Panels framework “the seven steps to indicator selection”, 17 preliminary indicators were developed which were divided into six themes accounting the diverse nature of the urban heat island and its impacts. The indicators were specified in a focus group discussion which had six attendees from environment-, the technical-, social- and health sectors. After the group discussion, the indicators were further modified with the help of a questionnaire answered by ten municipal employees, mainly from the environmental, technical and social and health sectors. On average, respondents found each indicator useful, five indicators were found to be really useful on average, and three indicators were found to be useless among a couple of respondents. After the survey, 11 indicators were modified and one indicator was removed. The end result was 16 indicators for monitoring adaptation to the urban heat island phenomenon divided into the following themes: social vulnerability, state of environment, infrastructure, green-blue infrastructure, policy actions and communication. The development of indicators does not as such contribute to the development of urban adaptation to a desired level, but it is nevertheless an important step in the process of developing adaptation monitoring in the city of Helsinki. This work provides tools for the city to develop their adaptation monitoring strategy which should be systematic and comparable. If the city wants to develop its adaptation monitoring, it is essential to document decisions and programs to explore sufficient coverage. Decisions and programs should be compared against identified adaptation commitments, targets and needs. As a conclusion, this thesis is important step towards more diverse and effective adaptation monitoring. This thesis takes adaptation monitoring forward, developing ways to put adaptation monitoring into practice.

Local climatic interactions between ice, ocean and atmosphere in Northwest Atlantic are significant due to their impacts on global climate. Sea-surface conditions and their links to major climatic patterns during the late-Holocene offshore southeastern Newfoundland, Placentia Bay, were studied using diatoms as paleobioindicators. The record indicates moderate conditions with Arctic influence being little stronger than Atlantic influence during the time period between 5.8 and 4.75 ka BP. The time period between 4.75 and 2 ka BP is dominated by Atlantic influence, except for a cold pulse around 3.5 ka BP. There is a considerable increase in Arctic influence during the time period between 2 and 0.4 ka BP. The strength of the inner Labrador Current seems to be the most important factor affecting the conditions in Placentia Bay. It follows both the NAO index and the strength of AMOC being strongest when the NAO index is positive and AMOC is strong. Cold periods in the record match with positive NAO. Meltwater and sea ice content in the inner Labrador Current seems to be dependent on the conditions in Baffin Bay. The AO index and the orbitally driven HTM, Neoglacial cooling and Roman warm period events affected the dynamics in Baffin Bay during the late-Holocene. Also, the AMOC caused either additional cooling or melting in the region depending on its strength. The major shift at 2 ka BP matched with a recorded shift in the deep convection rate in the Labrador Sea.

City of Helsinki is aspiring towards carbon neutrality by 2050. Households play an important role in this matter, as their share of carbon dioxide emissions is substantial in the city-level. The energy efficiency of different household appliances is improving, but their usage is rising in tandem. Overall, it is recognized that there needs to be a change in household behaviour. In this thesis I examine what kinds of low carbon actions households are taking and what has motivated them to do so. The thesis is done in co-operation with Aalto University’s HAPPI project, which deals with carbon neutral living in Helsinki. The project studies possibilities to promote climate friendly actions on a residential level. Research was carried out in Mellunkylä, a residential area in eastern Helsinki. The contribution of this thesis is to recognize customs that advance and support low carbon actions on a residential level. The research question took shape as: “What are the low carbon actions that the households in Mellunkylä are taking and why are they taking them?” In order to answer both questions, I decided to use two methods: a survey and interviews. The survey aimed to provide quantitative information about the people living in Mellunkylä as well as a generalization on how they were acting, what they were interested in and what they saw as barriers to further behavior change. In order to better understand what these actions mean for the households and to gain information about their values and other motivations, qualitative interviews were a justified method to further assess the research problem. They aimed to specify the behavior changes that had already occurred and what kinds of motives lie behind these behaviors, as well as to assess the barriers to other behavior changes. Results from both studies indicate that most households were generally making mostly curtailment actions, such as reducing the use of lightning, household appliances and water consumption. There were also efficiency actions, which for the most part consisted of investing on new lightning and household appliances. The households were not fond of acquiring green electricity and were not generally trying to reduce their emissions through heating-related solutions. The households had a general idea of why they should reduce their energy consumption: energy use was commonly understood a societal problem and everyone’s responsibility. The interviewees mentioned altruistic values and biospheric concerns most often, which was fruitful in that these kinds of values are important in saving energy in the long run. Of the external motivators economic factors were mentioned repetitively. They were thought to have an effect on the individual as well as on the economy. It seemed that the households were hoping to be able to use energy without worries and with small expenses. This suggests that the motivations for low carbon actions lie within costs and ease of life rather than environmental concerns. Habits were often mentioned as a barrier to behavior change. Also costs and inability to follow one’s energy consumption were some of the barriers that stood out in the studies. This is in line with the fact that the participants were making more of the curtailment actions rather than efficiency actions, which can be more costly. The case study households showed interest in following their energy consumption, so some kind of feedback as well as personal recommendations for improvement could be in place. This is an important area where the city could take actions, for example, by supporting the households to commit in reducing their energy consumption. It should be noted that in reaching a low carbon lifestyle, there are various routes, of which living-related low carbon actions are only one piece. It is important to find the actions and interventions which can result in long lasting behavioral changes.

Biodiversity loss is one of the pressing challenges of the 21st century, affecting ecosystems and people around the world. One of the biggest drivers of biodiversity loss are invasive alien species (IAS). Prevention of the arrival and spreading is the most efficient management option for IAS, which requires consistent monitoring, to ensure early detection. Effective surveillance of IAS may be challenging to conduct by authorities and professionals alone, and alternative data sources are needed to gather up-to-date data on species distributions. Novel data gathering tools and research approaches can provide easily available digital data for researchers to use. One of these options is citizen science (CS), where citizens are participating in scientific research. CS provides a cost-effective way to gather species observations in wide geographical and temporal scales. Citizen observations of IAS are seen as a valuable data source to support professional monitoring and they have been increasingly utilized in IAS research in recent years. The aim of my thesis was to study what kind of information have citizens produced on IAS in Finland. I studied the spatial and temporal distributions, as well as the taxonomic component of citizen observations of IAS, in the Finnish Biodiversity Info Facility’s open access database. Spatial distribution of the observations was visualized in choropleth maps and the spatial clustering of the data was studied with Moran's I, kernel density estimations and standard deviational ellipses. Additionally, I studied if there were IAS observations from the Finnish Natura 2000-sites as protected areas have been noted to be vulnerable to invasions. These data were also compared to expert observations (research projects, ecological surveys), to see differences between the datasets. Results showed that citizens had observed over 30 IAS in Finland and the majority of observations (52.77%) were made in recent years (2020–2023). Observations came from all regions of Finland, with high concentrations on the southern part of the country and around highly populated municipalities. Comparisons to expert observations suggested that citizens could provide complementary information on species less observed by experts and geographically in the northern part of the country. IAS monitoring in Finland can therefore benefit from citizen observations to fill in gaps in species distributions. The citizen observations did, however, include certain limitations and biases that need to be taken into account in further research. The methods used in this study can be repeated and used to inform decisions on where to implement management actions for IAS.

In teleost fish, various egg traits play a crucial role in the development, growth, and survival of the offspring and thus affect maternal reproductive success. Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) is a species where age at maturity, an important life-history trait influencing reproductive success, is under environmental and genetic control. In this study, I assessed how genetics of the vgll3 genotype and the dietary energy content affect egg traits and female maturation rate. The fish used in this study were lab-bred, three-year- old female Atlantic salmon with different vgll3 genotypes fed on one of two diets differing in energy content. The eggs traits included in the study were egg size, lipid, and protein content. Female maturation rate was not affected by the energy level of the diet or the vgll3 genotype. Egg size expressed as egg dry weight differed between females in the two feed treatments. These differences may be attributed to the increased lipid content of the eggs due to the higher fat content of the maternal diet. Females receiving high energy feed had a significantly higher egg lipid content compared to the low energy feed treatment. Females homozygous for the vgll3 allele associated with early maturity had a significantly lower egg lipid content in comparison to the females homozygous for the vgll3 late maturity allele indicating a potential reproductive fitness cost associated with early maturity. No effect of diet or vgll3 was found in egg protein content. This study provides the first evidence of vgll3 not only affecting Atlantic salmon age at maturity, as found in previous studies, but also egg lipids through maternal provisioning of nutrients.

Microplastics are widely studied subject and have raised concern towards water security worldwide but the vector effect of microplastic has not yet fully understood. In this study the ability of microplastic to attach hydrophobic organic compounds is tested with a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac. The ability to attach hydrophobic organic compounds has been proved by microplastics but not with diclofenac. Diclofenac is also causing water security threats nearby wastewater treatment plants because it is biologically active and can cause stress to the aquatic organisms even in small quantities. The aim of this study is to see if microplastic has vector effect for the diclofenac. If microplastic retains diclofenac on its surface area it would decrease the stress factor effect of diclofenac towards the investigated macroalgae Aegagropila linnaei. The possible change of oxidative stress levels in A. linnaei is measured by peroxidase enzyme activity. The aim is to see if the enzyme activity raises or decreases when A. linnaei is exposed to microplastic with and without diclofenac. If the peroxidase enzyme activity decreases in macroalgae while exposing A. linnaei to both microplastic and diclofenac it would strengthen the vector effect hypothesis. As a result, the peroxidase enzyme activity seems to have a decreasing trend when the diclofenac concentrations increase. Diclofenac affected to peroxidase enzyme activity but microplastic does not show any signs of binding of diclofenac in this study, and therefore microplastic cannot act as a vector for diclofenac.

Luontosuhde on noussut tärkeäksi tutkimuskohteeksi muun muassa ympäristövastuullisen käyttäytymisen ja ihmis-ten hyvinvoinnin tutkimuksessa. Ihmisen ja luonnon suhteeseen liittyvä käsitteistö on kuitenkin vielä hyvin haja-naista, ja itse termi ”luontosuhde” voi viitata useampiin eri asioihin. Tämän työn tärkeimpänä tavoitteena on muo-dostaa yhtenäinen, kokonaisvaltaiseen tarkasteluun ohjaava käsitteellinen kehys luontosuhdetutkimuksen käyttöön ja toisaalta työkaluksi ympäristökasvatukseen. Työssä tarkastellaan tieteidenvälisesti sitä, miten luontosuhde käsitetään luontosuhdetutkimuksessa. Työssä etsitään Galtungin-Kuitusen tiedekäsityksen mukaisesti vastauksia kysymyksiin “Miten asioiden pitäisi [luontosuhdetutki-muksessa] olla?”, “Miten asiat ovat nyt?” ja “Miten asioita tulisi kehittää?” Näiden kolmen kysymyksen mukaan muotoiltiin kolme tutkimustehtävää, joita ratkotaan kokonaisvaltaisen lähestymistavan, hermeneuttisen kehän ja ab-duktiivisen päättelyn tuella. Vastauksena kysymykseen ”miten asioiden pitäisi olla?” muodostetaan käsitteellis-teoreettisesti kokonaisvaltaisen luontosuhdekäsityksen kehys, jolla pyritään tavoittamaan luontosuhteen monet eri puolet ja ilmenemistavat. Kehys koostuu kolmesta tasosta, joilla luontosuhdetta voidaan tarkastella. Lähtökohtana ja kehyksen ensimmäisenä tasona on näkemys luontosuhteesta ihmisen suhteena luonnon kokonaisuuteen, jonka osa hän systeemeineen itsekin on. Kehyksen toisella tasolla tarkastellaan käsityksiä ihmisen ja todellisuuden inhimillisen ulottuvuuden (esim. kaupun-git, tietokoneet, ajatusrakennelmat) kuulumisesta luontoon sekä ihmisen oman ekologisen ulottuvuuden, sisäisen luontomme, roolia osana luontosuhdetta. Kolmannella tasolla luontosuhde jäsennetään neljään eri ulottuvuuteen: ekologinen, tajunnallinen, toiminnallinen ja sosiokulttuurinen. Kehyksen avulla analysoidaan systemoidun kirjallisuuskatsauksen keinoin luontosuhdetutkimusten käsityksiä luon-tosuhteesta (vastauksena kysymykseen ”miten asiat ovat?”). Aineistoksi rajattiin 28 luontosuhdetutkimusta rapor-toivaa artikkelia. Tutkimuksista tunnistettiin neljä erilaista luontosuhdekäsityksen tyyppiä. Kokonaisuudessaan luon-tosuhdetutkimuksissa painottui luontosuhteen tajunnallisen ulottuvuuden sekä ihmisen ja muun luonnon suhteen tut-kiminen. Ihmisen omaa ekologista ulottuvuutta käsiteltiin hyvin harvassa tutkimuksessa. Todellisuuden inhimillinen ulottuvuus taas asetettiin läpi aineiston luonnon ulkopuolelle, ja useissa tutkimuksissa se kuvattiin ihmisen luonnosta eriyttävänä tekijänä. Systemoituun kirjallisuuskatsaukseen sisältyi teoriaohjaava sisällönanalyysi, jossa selvitettiin luontosuhdekäsitysten lisäksi luontosuhdetutkimusten kehityskohtia vastauksena kysymykseen “miten asioita tulisi kehittää?” Luontosuh-detutkimuksen käyttöön ehdotetaan kolmea, työssä muodostetun kokonaisvaltaisen luontosuhdekäsityksen mukaista välinettä, joista yksi soveltuu erityisen hyvin myös ympäristökasvatuksen välineeksi. Työn tulosten perusteella luon-tosuhdetutkimuksessa tulisi nostaa selvemmin esiin erityisesti luontosuhteen ilmeneminen myös todellisuuden inhi-millisen ulottuvuuden kautta sekä ihmisen oman ekologisen ulottuvuuden rooli luontosuhteen kokemisessa.

The science of fish stock assessment is one that is very resource and labor intensive, with stock assessment models historically being based on data that causes a model to overestimate the strength of a population, sometimes with drastic consequences. The need of cost-effective assessment models and approaches increases, which is why I looked into using Bayesian modeling and networks as an approach not often used in fisheries science. I wanted to determine if it could be used to predict both recruitment and spawning stock biomass of four fish species in the north Atlantic, cod, haddock, pollock and capelin, based on no other evidence other than the recruitment or biomass data of the other species and if these results could be used to lower the uncertanties of fish stock models. I used data available on the RAM legacy database to produce four different models with the statistical software R, based on four different Bayes algorithms found in the R-package bnlearn, two based on continuous data and two based on discrete data. What I found was that there is much potential in the Bayesian approach to stock prediction and forecasting, as our prediction error percentage ranged between 1 and 40 percent. The best predictions were made when the species used as evidence had a high correlation coefficient with the target species, which was the case with cod and haddock biomass, which had a unusually high correlation of 0.96. As such, this approach could be used to make preliminary models of interactions between a high amount of species in a specific area, where there is data abundantly available and these models could be used to lower the uncertanties of the stock assessments. However, more research into the applicability for this approach to other species and areas needs to be conducted.

As a response to Arctic climate warming, Arctic vegetation is changing. Studies have shown a greening trend both in satellite-derived data (spectral greening) and in field measurements (vegetation greening). Some studies indicate that the increase in vegetation productivity in the Arctic is one of the drivers of the increase in organic carbon in lakes, lake brownification. The aim of this thesis is to bring more knowledge about this possible connection between vegetation change and lake brownification in a circumpolar context. My two main research questions are: 1) How has the summer terrestrial NDVI value, in short, the normalized vegetation index to estimate the amount of green vegetation, changed during the past 20 years in the study areas and is there variation between lake groups? and 2) How has the amount of organic carbon changed in the studied lakes? These questions are complemented by the following sub-questions: Have summer temperature or precipitation affected NDVI change? What is the relationship between summer NDVI and lake organic carbon, and between the change in temperature/precipitation and the change in lake organic carbon? I conducted a circumpolar study about multi-decadal greening and climate trends around 15 Arctic and subarctic lakes divided into five groups, using satellite-derived vegetation data (NDVI). I then compared these data with sediment data to study if potential greening has a connection to the lakes’ total organic carbon load. The study areas are located in South-Central Canada, Alaska, North Finland, Russia – Yakutia and Russia – Chukotka. I found that summer surface air temperature has increased significantly in all of the study areas during 1961-2018. Total summer precipitation has not significantly changed during the study period, but the trend has been positive in all study areas except for Russia, Chukotka. Winter precipitation has significantly decreased in Alaska, and in both of the Russian areas, and significantly increased in Jänkäjärvi, Finland during 1961-2018. NDVI has increased significantly in Jänkäjärvi (Finland), Rauchuagytgyn and Illerney (Russia, Chukotka) during 2000-2021. In these lakes the environmental variables were affecting NDVI. The connection between NDVI in the study areas and lake TOC was positive, but not statistically significant. The situation was the same for the comparison between temperature and TOC for most of the lakes. When comparing the change in summer and winter precipitation and the change in TOC, for most of the lakes, precipitation had decreased while TOC increased. In conclusion, the results indicate that environmental conditions are changing in the study areas and that in some areas that has led to an increase in summer terrestrial NDVI values. It may also be that catchment area greening can increase lake TOC. However, this connection needs more research, for instance with a larger sample size. This study with its varying results also supports the notion of heterogeneous Arctic environments.

Global warming should not rise beyond 1.5°C, which means that all sectors in the economy are needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The need for corporations to account their value chain emissions has sprung a variety of accounting and reporting standards. In response, Greenhouse Gas protocol established the Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Accounting and Reporting Standard. However, the success of the scope 3 emission accounting has been determined to be insufficient. The unsuccess of scope 3 emission accounting and reporting can be explained with the challenges that have been widely identified. Nevertheless, the identified challenges do not provide a deeper understanding of why they hinder the success of scope 3 accounting and reporting. This thesis delves into the challenges of scope 3 accounting by investigating four Finnish food industry corporations. The study for this thesis was conducted as semi-structured interviews of seven experts who work with the scope 3 accounting and reporting of their corporation. The interviews were held in May of 2022 and theory guided thematic analysis was used to analyze the results. The results show that there are challenges concerning measurement and evaluation, knowledge and guidance and communication. The measurement and evaluation challenges include data collection challenges, data quality challenges and data processing challenges. The key finding from this study is that most of these challenges are highly connected. The reporting corporation and suppliers’ resources and guidance play a key role in data collection and how accurate data can be obtained for the GHG inventory. These affect the comparability of gained emission factors and how comparable the emission information of products, production lines and corporations are. The findings of this study share understanding of the complexity of scope 3 accounting challenges.