Browsing by master's degree program "Ympäristömuutoksen ja globaalin kestävyyden maisteriohjelma"

Aviation emissions are on the rise as a result of growing numbers of air passengers and more efficient emission reductions in other industries. There are, however, a number of different means to achieve emissions reductions in aviation as well: these include, for example, technological solutions, taxes and different emissions compensation systems. In addition to these, a change in air travel behaviour has been suggested as a means to achieve emission reductions. However, there is no agreement about which solution or solutions should be prioritized. My thesis examines attitudes related to air travel and climate change in 17 Finnish blog texts. The blog texts were analysed using a qualitative attitude approach. The texts were analysed as collections of reactions to the claim that because of climate change, individuals should fly less. Based on the differences and similarities in reactions, or arguments, I categorized them and formed four groups of attitudes which highlight different ways of thinking about reducing individual air travel. The four groups of attitudes are the following: 1) attitudes that agree that individuals should fly less, 2) attitudes that question the claim, 3) mixed attitudes, and 4) attitudes that attempt to avoid the issue. As a part of the analysis, I also examined the bloggers’ perceptions about who should bear the responsibility for reducing aviation emissions and I also examined how these perceptions differ between the four groups of attitudes. The bloggers’ understandings of air travel vary between air travel as an unnecessary luxury and a view that flying is a crucial part of modern world and giving up air travel is not realistic. To achieve emission reductions, some bloggers are willing to switch from flying to travelling by land and sea, or they are ready to reduce travel altogether. Other bloggers stress the importance of technological solutions and policy measures in reducing emissions. Among the visible themes is also a tendency to stress the importance of doing things in moderation, which also applies to air travel. Some bloggers also wonder whether there are some reasons that could justify air travel from time to time. In any case, it is typical that bloggers show varying attitudes towards air travel and consider counterarguments to their initial arguments. In the blog texts, reducing aviation emissions comes across as a complex issue. Studying attitudes can help build knowledge about which means of reducing emissions are considered fair and desirable. Studying attitudes can also help locate barriers to environmentally friendly behaviour. In Finland, there is little research on attitudes towards air travel, and the results of my thesis can be utilized, for example, in planning transport policies or campaigns that promote sustainable travel. However, it should be noted that using blogs as research material poses some questions about the validity and the generalizability of the results. The public and potentially commercial nature of blogs may affect which kinds of attitudes are expressed. Because of this, it is important to study attitudes towards air travel by using different methods and material as well.

Climate change affects the human habitat and the mechanics that cause this scientific phenomenon are somewhat well known. This study examines how forest policy, agricultural policy and environmental policy can control the mechanisms that cause climate change. The material of the study consists of interviews of 12-13 Finnish experts, each representing one of the previously mentioned sectors. Each of the experts have been asked 13-14 questions about the importance of climate change mitigation, as well as the mechanisms by which agriculture and forests affect the climate and how climate change should be considered in environmental policy. The data was collected between October 8th and November 8th of 2019. This was in five weeks after the IPCC 1,5-degree climate report was published. A series of topics was constructed from the answers, and they are meant to be used as topics to be discussed in the Finnish 2019 parliamentary election. In addition, on how important scientific academics see the control of climate change, they were also asked how critical climate change is. The interview material is stored in the Finnish Social Science Data Archive (www.fsd.uta.fi) The experts’ answers to the importance of controlling climate change were almost unanimous and considered to be highly important. Carbon sink and storage were considered the most effective methods to control climate change. According to the results, the study proposes topics that should be discussed in politics and when a person wants to advance the control of climate change in forest, agriculture and environment politics. Political decisions are often based on value judgement, which again are based on the information of different methods efficacy. The results that are discussed in this study are not the only options, but they give guidelines and reasons for discussions related to effective choices. Forest policies should recognize the effects of forest industry to the development of carbon sink and storage. Forest industries prerequisite for operation and decision making in addition to considering employment and export industry, must also consider the effect for Finland’s net carbon emissions. Activities which lengthen the forest rotation time would have multiple positive benefits and increase forest carbon storage. Agricultural politics should broaden the discussion to reach food politics. Consumption habits have big effect on agricultural production structure and it can be directed by many ways. The structure of agricultural production should also be considered from the emission point of view, because the land use is substantially large and changes in production can affect Finland’s emission in a scale, that would have large effect on our nations net carbon emissions. To strengthen carbon sinks, landowners should have compensation mechanism methods, that increase carbon sinks, and which are combined to the size of the carbon storage. In environmental policy climate change must be paid more attention and governmental boundaries must not intervene significant decision making. The strengthening of the role of Ministry of the Environment and adding co-operation between different ministries supports the decision making regarding environmentally positive issues.

The present retreat of the Greenland Ice Sheet will increase the amount of fjords surrounded only by land-terminating glaciers in the future. As in the Arctic, productivity is generally lower at these kinds of fjord systems than in the ones surrounded by marine-terminating glaciers, this will most likely affect the productivity and ecosystem structure of coastal marine areas. Paleorecords of past coastal ecosystems can improve our understanding of the drivers of Arctic coastal ecosystem change and provide possible future scenarios. At present, there are not many high-resolution marine ecosystem reconstructions from the Arctic near-shore areas, and in particular those, which take into account land-derived inputs are lacking. To provide a detailed reconstruction of coastal marine ecosystem change over the Holocene and study its linkages to climate and terrestrial freshwater inputs, organic-walled palynomorphs (including e.g. dinoflagellate cysts and pollen) and some basic geochemistry (including e.g. total organic carbon, C:N ratio, biogenic silica and stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen) were examined from two radiometrically dated sediment cores from Young Sound fjord, Northeast Greenland. The results indicate that the near-shore marine ecosystem in Young Sound is clearly influenced by local forcings, such as terrestrial freshwater and organic matter inputs, during the Holocene. The results also illustrate that these terrestrial inputs affect the ecosystem structure and at least some dimension of ecosystem productivity. This study demonstrates that increasing number of fjords with only land-terminating glaciers in the future will affect marine productivity and ecosystem structure in Greenland’s fjord systems, with potential impacts on biodiversity and important fisheries. Studying past ecosystem changes in different fjord systems, and complementing marine records with proxies for terrestrial inputs, would further help constrain the future scenarios along the Greenland shore.

Methane (CH4) is a powerful greenhouse gas that has been increasing in total atmospheric concentration since the late 1980s. While more of this gas is being produced through anthropogenic sources, a significant part is still produced by microbial methanogenesis. This process, in combination with atmospheric CH4, provides methane oxidizing bacteria, methanotrophs, with consumable CH4. In this way, methanotrophs are an important part of the CH4 cycle. Most models estimating changes to CH4 concentrations as a result of increasing anthropogenic byproducts often fail to consider the importance of these bacteria as a sink. Methanotrophs have been long studied, but more still needs to be discovered about their functionality in varying ecosystem types. These microbes are cosmopolitan, found in diverse environments across the globe. In this study, soil samples collected from a boreal forest in Pallas, FI were used to measure how well soil properties can be used to approximate potential CH4 oxidation rate. The abundance of methanotrophs was analyzed in soils ranging from upland to peatland using qPCR targeting the methanotrophic bacteria specific pmoA alpha-subunit of the methane monooxygenase gene. Soil samples were also analyzed for microbial biomass, percent carbon, and percent nitrogen. Sample pH and bulk density were also measured. Significant correlations were observed for bulk density and soil layer type (pearsons r = 0.659, p-value = 0.027), pH and percent carbon (pearsons r = -0.582, p-value = 0.014), pH and bulk density (pearsons r = 0.778, p-value = 0.002), and low affinity potential CH4 oxidation rate and microbial biomass in upland and peat-forest ecosystem types (pearsons r = -0.569, p-value = 0.043). Methanotroph abundance was significantly correlated with potential oxidation rates at low and high affinity conditions when analyzed across all sampling locations (pearsons r = 0.854 p-value = 1.27e-05; pearsons r = 0.602, p-value = 0.011). Methanotroph abundance and potential CH4 oxidation under both low and high affinity conditions were not found to be significantly correlated in upland and peat-forest soils alone when peatland samples were omitted. Soil properties show a moderate accuracy to predict high affinity potential oxidation uptake in upland and peat-forest soils when trained using all sample data. The soil properties used in this analysis do not show any ability to predict potential CH4 oxidation under low affinity conditions. All model findings are exploratory and further testing and development would be necessary to strengthen the findings.

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.

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.

Mining of sulfide minerals produces acidic effluents rich in soluble metals and sulfate. The effluents pose a risk to the environment and must therefore be treated prior to their release. Conventionally, effluents are neutralized, and remaining metals are precipitated as hydroxides by means of alkaline minerals or industrial chemicals. The process leads to a formation of large amounts of disposable sludge containing valuable metals. Efforts are needed for more sustainable and resource efficient water treatment in the spirit of circular economy. Nanofibrillated cellulose (NFC) adsorbents are a promising and sustainable alternative to conventional treatments as cellulose is the most abundant natural polymer. In addition, NFC can be prepared from industrial byproducts and its surface properties can easily be modified to adsorb pollutants with different chemical properties. Understanding the adsorption mechanisms is essential for the rational development and use of NFC in water treatment and environmental protection in the future. Based on previous studies, anionic NFC retains metal cations and sulfate anions simultaneously from aqueous solutions. However, the adsorption mechanisms in conditions comparable to e.g. authentic mining water with high metal salt concentrations are poorly understood. In this Master’s Thesis work, adsorption experiments with pure metal salt solutions of increasing metal concentrations (0-800 mM) were carried out to investigate the adsorption mechanisms of metal cations and anions. Based on previous studies five cations with different chemical properties were chosen: Na⁺, Mg²⁺, Mn²⁺, Al³⁺ ja Fe³⁺. The adsorption was examined in both metal chloride and sulfate solutions to also elucidate the co-adsorption of counter ions and their possible effects on metal adsorption on NFC. The Freundlich adsorption isotherm model was utilized to analyze the adsorption of metals. In addition, removal percentages were calculated for both metal cations and their counter anions. NFC was observed to retain all metal cations equally regardless of their different properties and pH-values of the metal salt solutions. The removal percentage of both cations and anions ranged mainly between 14–20 % and the removal capacity of NFC decreased only slightly with increasing initial concentrations. No remarkable differences were observed in the adsorption isotherms of different metals and the adsorption was almost linear in the whole concentration range. Despite the relatively low removal percentages, the amounts of metals adsorbed by NFC (mmol/g dry weight) were tenfold compared to those previously obtained in many studies. According to the results, NFC adsorbed cations non-specifically with weak interactions and the dominating adsorption mechanism resembles physical rather than chemical adsorption. Upon the adsorption of cations, an equal amount of negative charge was co-adsorbed and hence the adsorption of anions was deemed electrostatic in nature.

The goal of this thesis is to examine whether the EU’s climate policy towards Africa is normative after signing the Paris Agreement. This is done by analysing the goals and means of EU climate policy in this context. The aim is also to find out what elements besides normativity form the EU’s climate policy in this case. The research material consists of public documents from various EU institutions, the Joint Africa-EU Strategy and its Action Plans, and joint statements by EU and African actors. Qualitative abductive content analysis was used as the research method. In the context of international climate policy, the EU is described as a normative actor motivated by the promotion of universal norms instead of its own interests. Criteria, based on the Normative Power Europe theory, guide the assessment of the normativity of the EU’s climate policy towards Africa. According to the applied criteria, both the objectives and the means of climate policy should be normative in order for the policy to be considered normative. In its relations with Africa, EU climate policy is not purely normative but a combination of norm diffusion and pursuit of self-interest. EU seeks to secure its energy supplies and European security and increase the opportunities of European industry in Africa. In terms of means, the asymmetric balance of power is a problem for normativity. It makes the EU’s persuasion towards Africa and using the development aid as means of norm diffusion seem like coercion. Thus, the EU climate policy is not always normative. Depending on the context, it is either normative, imperialist or status quo policy.

Participatory budgeting is one of the major democratic innovations of the recent decades. This participatory method from Brazil has been started to actively utilize in Finnish municipalities during 2010s. The basic idea of this methodology is that citizens can together decide how to use public assets. The goal of this thesis is to understand how participatory budgeting can have an impact on ecological sustainability in Finland. I’m focusing on the proposals of participatory budgeting which the citizens have voted for to be implemented. Research material has been collected from public online sources on all the Finnish participatory budgeting projects. Some of these projects have been excluded as they do not fulfill the characteristics of participatory budgeting. The material is analyzed using content analysis, building categories, themes and types. There are three key findings in this thesis. First, participatory budgeting has created ecologically sustainable solutions, but sustainability has been an unintended by-product. Proposals concerning environment focus primarily on people’s living environment. Second, the changes are minor, and individuals are the ones carrying the responsibility for the sustainability. Third, the means how proposals are carried out influences ecological sustainability. Here, municipal authorities have a significant role. Finnish participatory budgeting projects therefore have the chance to create ecologically sustainable proposals. However, the capability is limited by both small, project specific budgets and processes that do not acknowledge ecological sustainability. In the long run, the changes might be more significant as participatory budgeting still is relatively new method in Finnish society.

Jätevesiliete sisältää arvokkaita kasviravinteita ja orgaanista ainesta, jotka olisi välttämätöntä saada kiertämään kiertotalouden periaatteiden mukaisesti. Erityisesti kasvien kasvun kannalta olennainen ja määrältään rajallinen fosfori olisi tärkeä ohjata uudelleen käyttöön, esimerkiksi soveltuvaan maatalouteen, sillä Suomessa maatalouteen käytetään vuosittain 95,5 % kaikesta fosforista. Puhdistamoliete on kuitenkin yksi yhteiskunnan haastavimmista sivuvirroista, sillä se sisältää myös haitallisia aineita, kuten raskasmetalleja, mikromuoveja, pysyviä orgaanisia yhdisteitä ja lääkejäämiä. Tässä opinnäytetyössä aihetta tarkastellaan kirjallisuuskatsauksen ja dokumenttianalyysin keinoin sekä vahvistetaan laadullisella aineistolla. Viime vuosina monet suuret suomalaiset viljanostajat ovat kieltäneet puhdistamolietepohjaisten lannoitetuotteiden käytön sopimuspelloillaan. Tutkielmassa kartoitettiin asiantuntijahaastatteluiden avulla, miten tähän lopputulokseen päädyttiin sekä millainen suhtautuminen yrityksissä on uusiin kehitteillä oleviin puhdistusteknologioihin. Tutkimusta varten haastateltiin kolmen yrityksen edustajia tammikuussa 2020. Vastaukset analysoitiin sisällön analyysin keinoin. Puhdistamoliete ja sen käyttö on aineiston perusteella osa ympäristökonfliktien historiallista jatkumoa. Nykytutkimuksen valossa suomalainen puhdistamoliete on käsiteltynä turvallista käyttää. Useista tutkimuksista huolimatta kaikkien haitallisten aineiden pitkäaikaisia vaikutuksia erityisesti maaperään ei ole pystytty täysin kartoittamaan, sillä osa lietteestä löydettävistä haitallisista aineista on yhteiskunnassamme suhteellisen uusia yhdisteitä. Lietepohjaisten tuotteiden loppukäyttö on yhteiskunnallinen, taloudellinen ja ympäristökysymys, josta eri toimijoilla on eri intressit ja vaihtelevat näkemykset. Tutkimuksen perusteella viljanostajat suhtautuvat lietepohjaisiin tuotteisiin kielteisesti niiden kyseenalaisen maineen vuoksi. Yritykset korostivat, että heidän omat asiakkaansa eivät hyväksy lietepohjaisten tuotteiden käyttöä. Lisäksi haastatteluissa nousi ilmi huoli lietteen tutkimuksen tietoaukoista, koetut ihmisperäisten kierrätysravinteiden imagohaitat, sekä yritysten vastuullisuuden painopisteen sijoittuminen muualle kuin kierrätysravinteisiin. Pro gradu tutkielmassani esitän, että lietteen käsittelyn uudet teknologiat eivät tule yksin ratkaisemaan lietepohjaisten tuotteiden käyttöä maataloudessa, sillä viljanostajien kiinnostus kierrätysravinteiden käyttöön on vähäistä ja teknologiset erot käsittelymetodien välillä jäävät helposti epäselviksi.