The high ambitions for renewable carbon technologies, increasing electricity demands and technological developments will likely open for more small-scale electricity production closer to end users in cities and urbanized areas. This paper seeks to understand how participatory design methods and the integration of renewable energy techniques like photovoltaics can contribute to more democratic, sustainable, and livable urban planning in the age of energy transition. Data was analysed through participatory design workshops in a suburban district in the north of Sweden, with residents living and working there, and with stakeholders from the municipality and the local energy company. The results of the resident design workshop indicate a significant reservoir of knowledge and creative ability among the participants. It emphasizes the importance of bringing people together to share their opinions and ideas for a more democratic planning in the built environment. The stakeholder workshop indicates that co-operations between multiple stakeholders and the development of participatory methods are essential for addressing the problematic issues associated with e.g., building regulations and community shared electricity. Fostering collaboration, and promoting inclusive decision-making, can lead to more effective and sustainable practices, better regulatory frameworks, and improved outcomes for communities.

Stricter environmental regulations (e.g. the EU’s Water Framework Directive) will entail many environmental improvement measures in waters that have been affected by hydropower, and dam removals are becoming a more common measure. This paper reviews economic evaluations of dam removals, primarily drawing on studies in the USA, and identifies key, frequently recurring, issues that future evaluations will likely need to consider. The paper also reports on an ex-ante evaluation of the recent removal of the Marieberg Hydropower Plant in the Mörrum River in Sweden. An environmental valuation survey carried out as a key part of this evaluation was conducted as a replication of a previous study, where the policy context was different but the expected ecological outcome similar. The replication study produced comparable results to those of the previous study.

This paper examines preferences for future transports, focusing specifically on shared transports and autonomous vehicles, in a national context. A choice experiment approach is applied in which respondents are asked to choose between individual and shared transport services, each associated with different attribute levels (driver/autonomous, waiting and travel times, and costs) for a trip to go grocery shopping. Data are analysed by applying latent class modelling, which facilitates the analysis of heterogeneity in preferences for the attributes across different groups in the sample. The results reveal three groups with considerable heterogeneity in preferences: the group accepting trade-offs, the lone-wolves, and the sociable. The trade-off group do not want to share transport, but are positive towards autonomous vehicles, and make trade-offs between these characteristics and costs. The members in the lone-wolves group are only concerned about not travelling in a shared transport. Members in the smallest sociable group are positive about sharing transports but reject autonomous vehicles. Women are overrepresented in the sociable group, as are people with environmental concern and those who lack a driver's licence. Overall, we find that a majority of the sample does not want to share transport services, which potentially constitutes a major challenge for policy makers regarding reaching environmental transport policy goals.

Research on car use for commuters dominates literature although transport for leisure purposes constitutes a substantial share of the total transported kilometres. This study contributes by its focus on car use to maintenance (e.g. grocery shopping) and discretionary (e.g. social visits) leisure activities. We analyse whether individual perceptions about a personal responsibility to contribute to a sustainable transport sector restricts car use, and we also control for other factors such as type of municipality, residential area and sociodemographic characteristics. The analysis is based on survey data from 1024 car users living in rural, urban or metropolitan municipalities in Sweden. Data is analysed by applying recursive bivariate probit models. The results show that those who feel a personal responsibility to contribute to a sustainable transport sector drive less when travelling, in particular to maintenance activities. As well, those who regularly commute by car are more likely to use the car also for leisure purposes, which indicates that measures aimed at reducing commuting by car may spill over to travel for leisure.

Background The purpose of this study is to analyse what factors that explain individual differences in walking and cycling when commuting in different parts of Sweden. Walking and cycling is potentially accessible all over the country, while well developed public transport is mainly a viable option in densely populated areas. Methodology The importance of differences in local characteristics for the choice of transport mode will be scrutinised, together with individual differences in attitudes andpreferences. Data is collected through a survey sent to people living in five Swedish municipalities with different demographic, socio-economic ,infrastructural and geographical characteristics. Results The results for the pooled sample indicate that the choice to walk/cycle when commuting is related to health considerations and environmental concerns. Distance to work/school is also an important factor. Men tend to be more prone to choose active transport, and so do respondents with lower income. The results further reveal that availability of safe routes for walking and cycling are important for the choice to walk/cycle when commuting. As health considerations are important, we suggest policy makers to stress health motives when they promote walking and cycling in the future. Our results further suggest that it is important to consider availability and accessibility in community planning, and to prioritize safety and comfort of walking and cycling, not least in parts of the country where public transport is not an economically viable option.

Background

The Västerbotten intervention program (VIP), is a public health promotion program in northern Sweden with the aim of preventing cardiovascular disease. Positive effects have been reported although the evidence is not unequivocal. Since only historical controls have been used, effects from other sources than the program have largely been uncontrolled for and health related quality of life (HRQoL) has not been evaluated.

Purpose

By using the neighbouring county of Norrbotten (NB) as the reference population, we compare HRQoL in Västerbotten (VB) and in NB.

Methods

In 2014 the Northern Sweden survey, Monitoring of Trends and Determinants in Cardiovascular Disease (MONICA), examined a random sample from the two counties. HRQoL was measured with the EQ-5D-3L. In total, 1112 subjects aged 40–74 years participated, 516 in VB and 594 in NB. Differences in mean QoL between VB and NB were analysed via Student’s t-test and the Pearson chi-square test.

Results

Average HRQoL measured by the EQ-5D-index was 0.798 in VB and 0.811 in NB, a difference of 0.013 (p = 0.2, CI -0.009 to 0.036). For subjects aged 45–54 years, the HRQoL was lower in VB than in NB, a difference of 0.048 (p = 0.041; CI 0.002 to 0.0094). Men had higher HRQoL than women, and university educated had higher HRQoL than those without university education. EQ-VAS showed similar results. Subjects from NB and from VB did not differ regarding age, gender and level of education. In NB, HRQoL decrease with age, a pattern not seen in VB.

Conclusions

We found similar levels of HRQoL in VB and in NB.

This paper analyzes the preferences for reducing the negative impacts of landslides. Negative consequences of landslides include impacts on transport infrastructure, humans, the environment and important societal services. We apply a choice experiment. The analysis is based on 6048 observations from 504 participants in a web panel. The overall finding is that reducing the risk of landslides would have a positive impact on individuals’ utility, and that individuals prioritize preventing negative consequences on human health and safety over maintaining societal services, environmental status, and preventing damages to transport infrastructure, which seems to be least pressing. Results indicate that prioritizations of citizens differ from the prioritizations of public authorities, whose risk assessment model for evaluating the consequences of landslides gives equal weight to the different impacts.

For decades, alternative (to carbon) sources of energy in Sweden have been linked to hydro- and nuclear power. However, this is set to change as the Swedish government’s agenda has placed extraordinary emphasis on renewables. The implementation of renewables in Sweden poses several challenges. Literature shows that two main aspects deter local communities from embracing large renewable projects: lack of acceptance (of the impacts) and lack of participation (in the making and benefits). Sweden has a long tradition of stakeholder engagement in state-funded projects in the form of participatory meetings and written feedbacks. However, other participatory techniques are less established. Since 2014, we have engaged in research projects dealing with energy landscapes, design thinking, and what we have recently named “resourceful communities”. The aim of this chapter is to report on the results of our recent projects that engage with the above-mentioned concepts/strategies to foster collaboration and understanding between end-users and other stakeholders.

Sweden is a decentralised country where local managers, who are key actors in water management, often deal with relatively difficult prioritisations, tradeoffs and conflicting goals. Many of these challenges relate to the effective implementation of the European Union Water Framework Directive. As an input to these challenges, the present paper elicits and analyses local and semi-local citizens’ preferences for water quality attributes related to the European Water Framework directive in a river basin located in southeast of Sweden. Based on a choice experiment tailored to the case study area, the paper analyses preferences for selected attributes based on real criteria for ecological water status in the implementation of the directive. The target population lives in the municipalities through which the river passes, or in municipalities neighbouring those. Despite this spatial proximity to the river, the analysis reveals limited knowledge and interest in matters related to the environmental quality of the river. There is no evidence that preferences differ between respondents with regard to experience or knowledge about the water basin, nor with regard to recreational habits in the area. These results offer input to local water management by providing information about preferences for explicit water quality attributes.