This paper investigates causal factors leading to pluvial flood damages, beside rainfall amount and intensity, in two Swedish cities. Observed flood damage data from a Swedish insurance database, collected under 13 years, and a set of spatial data, describing topography, demography, land cover and building type were analyzed through principal component analysis (PCA). The topographic wetness index (TWI) is the only investigated variable that indicates a significant relationship with to the number and amount of insurance damage. The Pearson correlation coefficient is 0.68 for the number of insurance damages and 0.63 for amount of insurance damages. With a linear regression model TWI explained 41% of the variance of the number of insurance flood damages and 34% of variance of amount of insurance flood damage.

Future studies on this topic should consider implementing TWI as a potential measure in urban flood risk analyses.

The Utstein registry template stress recording of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) location and suggest eight data options with additional subcategories. The subjectivity in categorization of OHCA locations by emergency medical services (EMS) makes objective regional and international comparisons hard.

Objectives Early defibrillation in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is of importance to improve survival. In many countries the number of automated external defibrillators (AEDs) is increasing, but the use is low. Guidelines suggest that AEDs should be installed in densely populated areas and in locations with many visitors. Attempts have been made to identify optimal AED locations based on the incidence of OHCA using geographical information systems (GIS), but often on small datasets and the studies are seldom reproduced. The aim of this paper is to investigate if the distribution of public AEDs follows the incident locations of public OHCAs in urban areas of Stockholm County, Sweden. Method OHCA data were obtained from the Swedish Register for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and AED data were obtained from the Swedish AED Register. Urban areas in Stockholm County were objectively classified according to the pan-European digital mapping tool, Urban Atlas (UA). Furthermore, we reclassified and divided the UA land cover data into three classes (residential, non-residential and other areas). GIS software was used to spatially join and relate public AED and OHCA data and perform computations on relations and distance. Results Between 1 January 2012 and 31 December 2014 a total of 804 OHCAs occurred in public locations in Stockholm County and by December 2013 there were 1828 AEDs available. The incidence of public OHCAs was similar in residential (47.3%) and non-residential areas (43.4%). Fewer AEDs were present in residential areas than in non-residential areas (29.4% vs 68.8%). In residential areas the median distance between OHCAs and AEDs was significantly greater than in non-residential areas (288 m vs 188 m, p<0.001). Conclusion The majority of public OHCAs occurred in areas classified in UA as 'residential areas' with limited AED accessibility. These areas need to be targeted for AED installation and international guidelines need to take geographical location into account when suggesting locations for AED installation.

This chapter presents a concise synthesis of recent research efforts, emphasizing the combined use of ecosystem services and landscape metric concepts for quantifying provision, quality, and accessibility to ecosystem services as indicators of socio-ecological well-being in deprived urban areas in the Majority World. Such analyses are challenging due to the common lack of official and reliable data related to socioeconomic, demographic, ecological, and land use/land cover variables. The recommended analytical steps leverage freely available earth observation products with global coverage, requiring no proprietary software and enabling barrier-free application. Integration of readily available data sets is possible during image classification, post-processing, and ensuing spatio-ecological evaluation. The study highlights the importance of differentiating between ecosystem functions and services and separating land use from land cover to ensure accurate attributions. Additionally, incorporating spatial and temporal aspects, as well as considering beneficiaries, is essential for assessing ecosystem services. Local stakeholder and community interactions are advised to gain a comprehensive understanding of the local context. Future research should explore challenges associated with sustainable management of ecosystem service provision areas in densely populated informal settlements. This includes prioritizing specific services, developing tailored valuation approaches, and quantifying the influences of landscape configuration and composition. Addressing discrepancies between actual and intended land use remains critical for advancing the understanding of ecosystem services in urban environments. This approach underscores the importance of leveraging remote sensing data and fostering local stakeholder engagement for effective ecosystem service management in deprived urban areas.

Disasters and public health emergencies are increasing. Climate change, transportation incidents,increasing numbers of mass gatherings, chemical and technical incidents, increasing number of armedconflicts and terrorism are some of the major reasons for this increasing pattern. Any of these eventsmay result in severe casualties, destruction of infrastructures and create a situation in which thenumber of victims may exceed available resources. Much of the knowledge in disaster medicine isbased on the “lessons learned”.

However, it has been proven that no lessons learned theoretically can be of practical use if theknowledge is not tested in an appropriate environment. In this perspective, the major clinicalexcellence and testing laboratories for disaster response are the scenes where disasters happen. Yet,most of the research and reports in the field are produced in high-income countries, while most of thedisasters happen in middle- or low-income countries. There is thus a need to bring these twoenvironments together in order to translate theory into practice and among people who are highlyexposed and involved in the multidisciplinary management of a disaster or major incident.

The unprecedented growth of urban areas all over the globe is nowadays maybe most apparent in China having undergone rapid urbanization since the late 1970s. The need for new residential, commercial and industrial areas leads to new urban regions challenging sustainable development and the maintenance and creation of a high living standard as well as the preservation of ecological functionality. Therefore, timely and reliable information on land-cover changes and their consequent environmental impacts are needed to support sustainable urban development.The objective of this research is the analysis of land-cover changes, especially the development of urban areas in terms of speed, magnitude and resulting implications for the natural and rural environment using satellite imagery and the quantification of environmental impacts with the concepts of ecosystem services and landscape metrics. The study areas are the cities of Shanghai and Stockholm and the three highly-urbanized Chinese regions Jing-Jin-Ji, the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta. The analyses are based on classification of optical satellite imagery (Landsat TM/ETM+ and HJ-1A/B) over the past two decades. The images were first co-registered and mosaicked, whereupon GLCM texture features were generated and tasseled cap transformations performed to improve class separabilities. The mosaics were classified with a pixel-based SVM and a random forest decision tree ensemble classifier. Based on the classification results, two urbanization indices were derived that indicate both the absolute amount of urban land and the speed of urban development. The spatial composition and configuration of the landscape was analysed by landscape metrics. Environmental impacts were quantified by attributing ecosystem service values to the classifications and the observation of value changes over time.

ivThe results from the comparative study between Shanghai and Stockholm show a decrease in all natural land-cover classes and agricultural areas, whereas urban areas increased by approximately 120% in Shanghai, nearly ten times as much as in Stockholm where no significant land-cover changes other than a 12% urban expansion could be observed. From the landscape metrics analysis results, it appears that fragmentation in both study regions occurred mainly due to the growth of high density built-up areas in previously more natural environments, while the expansion of low density built-up areas was for the most part in conjunction with pre-existing patches. Urban growth resulted in ecosystem service value losses of ca. 445 million US dollars in Shanghai, mostly due to a decrease in natural coastal wetlands. In Stockholm, a 4 million US dollar increase in ecosystem service values could be observed that can be explained by the maintenance and development of urban green spaces. Total urban growth in Shanghai was 1,768 km2 compared to 100 km2 in Stockholm. Regarding the comparative study of urbanization in the three Chinese regions, a total increase in urban land of about 28,000 km2 could be detected with a simultaneous decrease in ecosystem service values corresponding to ca. 18.5 billion Chinese Yuan Renminbi. The speed and relative urban growth in Jing-Jin-Ji was highest, followed by the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta. The increase in urban land occurred predominately at the expense of cropland. Wetlands decreased due to land reclamation in all study areas. An increase in landscape complexity in terms of land-cover composition and configuration could be detected. Urban growth in Jing-Jin-Ji contributed most to the decrease in ecosystem service values, closely followed by the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta.

In the past 20 years, China has experienced rapid urbanization as a consequence of economic reforms and population growth.  Urbanization is still proceeding at staggering speed. Therefore, the development of effective analytical methods to monitor the unprecedented growth of Chinese cities and the resulting environmental impacts are crucial for urban planning and sustainable development. The overall objective of this research is to investigate urban land cover change between 1990 and 2010 and the resulting effects upon ecosystem services by analysis of multitemporal Landsat 5 and HJ1-A/B images in three highly urbanized regions.

This study aims at providing a new method to efficiently analyze detailed urban ecological conditions at the example of Shanghai, one of the world's most densely populated megacities. The main objective is to develop a method to effectively analyze high-resolution optical satellite data for mapping of ecologically important urban space and to evaluate ecological changes through the emerging ecosystem service supply and demand concept. Two IKONOS and GeoEye-1 scenes were used to determine land use/land cover change in Shanghai's urban core from 2000 to 2009. After preprocessing, the images were segmented and classified into seven distinct urban land use/land cover classes through SVM. The classes were then transformed into ecosystem service supply and demand budgets for regulating, provisioning and cultural services, and ecological integrity based on ecosystem functions. Decreases in continuous urban fabric and industrial areas in the favor of urban green sites and high-rise areas with commercial/residential function could be observed resulting in an increase of at least 20% in service supply budgets. Main contributor to the change is the decrease in continuous urban fabric and industrial areas. The overall results and outcome of the study strengthen the suggested application of the proposed method for urban ecosystem service budget mapping with hitherto for that purpose unutilized high-resolution data. The insights and results from this study might further contribute to sustainable urban planning, prove common grounds for interurban comparisons, or aid in enhancing ecological intraurban functionality by analyzing the distribution of urban ecospace and lead to improved accessibility and proximity to ecosystem services in urban areas.

This study aims at providing a new method to efficiently analyse detailed urban ecological conditions at the example of Shanghai, one of the world’s most densely populated megacities. The main objective is to develop a method to effectively analyse high-resolution optical satellite data for mapping of ecologically important urban space and to evaluate ecological changes through the emerging ecosystem service supply and demand budget concept. Two IKONOS and GeoEye-1 scenes were used to determine land use/land cover change in Shanghai's urban core from 2000 to 2009. After pre-processing, the images were segmented and classified into seven distinct urban land use/land cover classes through SVM. The classes were then transformed into ecosystem service supply and demand budgets based on ecosystem functions. Decreases of continuous urban fabric and industrial areas in the favour of urban green sites and high-rise areas with commercial/residential function could be observed resulting in an increase of at least 20% in service supply budgets. Main contributors to the change are mainly the decrease of continuous urban fabric and industrial areas. The overall results and outcome of the study strengthen the suggested application of the proposed method for urban ecosystem service budget mapping with hitherto for that purpose unutilized high-resolution data. The insights and results from this study might further contribute to sustainable urban planning, prove common grounds for inter-urban comparisons or aid in enhancing ecological intra-urban functionality by analysing the distribution of urban eco-space and lead to improved accessibility and proximity to ecosystem services in urban areas

The degree of urbanization and resulting effects on Ecosystem Services is investigated in the Yangtze River Delta in China within a 20 year time frame from 1990 to 2010. A Random forest classifier is used to classify the Landsat mosaic from 1990 and the HJ-1A/B mosaic dating from 2010. Urban Land Index (UI) and Urban Expansion Index (UX) are used to represent the intensity and rapidity of urbanization. Post-Classification Change Detection is then performed and Ecosystem Service value losses for the land-cover classes water, wetland, forest and cropland that transitioned to urban areas are calculated according to a valuation scheme adapted to the Chinese market. The results showed that Yangtze River Delta experienced significant urbanization during 1990 to 2010. Urban areas increased alongside a major decrease in cropland resulting in a substantial loss of 4.2 billion CNY in Ecosystem Services.

The degree of urbanization and resulting effects on Ecosystem Services is investigated in the Yangtze River Delta in China within a 20 year time frame from 1990 to 2010. A Random forest classifier is used to classify the Landsat mosaic from 1990 and the HJ-1A/B mosaic dating from 2010. Urban Land Index (UI) and Urban Expansion Index (UX) are used to represent the intensity and rapidity of urbanization. Post-Classification Change Detection is then performed and Ecosystem Service value losses for the land-cover classes water, wetland, forest and cropland that transitioned to urban areas are calculated according to a valuation scheme adapted to the Chinese market. The results showed that Yangtze River Delta experienced significant urbanization during 1990 to 2010. Urban areas increased alongside a major decrease in cropland resulting in a substantial loss of 4.2 billion CNY in Ecosystem Services.

The two main objectives of this study are to evaluate the potential use and synergetic effects of ESA Sentinel-1A C-band SAR and Sentinel-2A MSI data for classification and mapping of ecologically important urban and peri-urban space and to introduce spatial characteristics into ecosystem service analyses based on remotely sensed data. Image resolutions between 5 m and 20 m provided by the Sentinel satellites introduce a new relevant spatial scale in-between high and medium resolution data at which not only urban areas but also their important hinterlands can be effectively and efficiently mapped. Sentinel-1/2 data fusion facilitates both the capture of ecologically relevant details while at the same time also enabling large-scale urban analyses that draw surrounding regions into consideration. The combined use of Sentinel-1A SAR in Interferometric Wide Swath mode and simulated Sentinel-2A MSI (APEX) data is being evaluated in a classification of the Zürich metropolitan area, Switzerland. The SAR image was terrain-corrected, speckle-filtered and co-registered to the simulated Sentinel-2 image. After radiometric and spatial resampling, the fused image stack was segmented and classified by SVM. After post-classification, landscape elements were investigated in terms of spatial characteristics and topological relations that are believed to influence ecosystem service supply and demand, i.e. area, contiguity, perimeter-toarearatio and distance. Based on the classification results, ecosystem service supplies and demands accounting for spatial and topological patch characteristics were attributed to 14 land cover classes. The quantification of supply and demand values resulted in a positive ecosystem service budget for Zürich. The spatially adjusted service budgets and the original budgets are similar from a landscape perspective but deviate up to 50% on thepatch level. The introduction of spatial and topological patch characteristics gives a more accurate impression of ecosystem service supply and demands and their distributions, thus enabling more detailed analyses in complexurban surroundings. The method and underlying data are considered suitable for urban land cover and ecosystem service mapping and the introduction of spatial aspects into relative ecosystem service valuation concepts is believed to add another important aspect in currently existing approaches.

The objective of the study is to evaluate the potential use and synergetic effects of novel ESA Sentinel-1A C-band SAR and Sentinel-2A MSI data for mapping of ecologically important urban and peri-urban space. Image resolutions between 5 m and 20 m provided by the Sentinel satellites introduce a new relevant spatial scale in-between high and medium resolution data at which not only urban areas but also their important hinterlands are expected to be effectively and efficiently mapped. The fusion of Sentinel-1/2 facilitates both the capture of ecologically relevant details but at the same time also enables large-scale urban analyses that draw surrounding regions into consideration. The combined use of Sentinel-1A SAR in Interferometric Wide Swath mode and simulated Sentinel-2A MSI (APEX) data is being evaluated in classification of a metropolitan area over Zürich, Switzerland. The SAR image was pre-processed using Range-Doppler terrain correction. A 5x5 adaptive Lee speckle filter was applied to the VH and VV intensity bands before co-registration to the simulated Sentinel-2 image. After radiometric and spatial resampling, the fused images were segmented by the KTH-SEG algorithm before being classified by SVM. After reclassification under masks and sieve-filtering, the resulting landscape patches were investigated in terms of spatial characteristics and topological relations that are deemed to be influential for ecosystem service provision. Based on the classification result, ecosystem service supply and demand values that account for spatial and topological patch characteristics were attributed to 14 different land cover classes. The method and underlying data were found suitable for urban land-cover and ecosystem service mapping. The introduction of spatial aspects into ecosystem service providing areas is believed to add another important aspect in currently existing valuation approaches.

This study investigates land cover changes, magnitude and speed of urbanization and evaluates possible impacts on the environment by the concepts of landscape metrics and ecosystem services in China's three largest and most important urban agglomerations: Jing-Jin-Ji, the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta. Based on the classifications of six Landsat TM and HJ-1A/B remotely sensed space-borne optical satellite image mosaics with a superior random forest decision tree ensemble classifier, a total increase in urban land of about 28,000 km(2) could be detected alongside a simultaneous decrease in natural land cover classes and cropland. Two urbanization indices describing both speed and magnitude of urbanization were derived and ecosystem services were calculated with a valuation scheme adapted to the Chinese market based on the classification results from 1990 and 2010 for the predominant land cover classes affected by urbanization: forest, cropland, wetlands, water and aquaculture. The speed and relative urban growth in Jing-Jin-Ji was highest, followed by the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta, resulting in a continuously fragmented landscape and substantial decreases in ecosystem service values of approximately 18.5 billion CNY with coastal wetlands and agriculture being the largest contributors. The results indicate both similarities and differences in urban-regional development trends implicating adverse effects on the natural and rural landscape, not only in the rural-urban fringe, but also in the cities' important hinterlands as a result of rapid urbanization in China.

Sustainable development in metropolitan regions is challenging in the light of continuous urbanization. Remote sensing provides timely and reliable information on urban areas and their changing patterns. This study's objectives are to evaluate the contribution of Sentinel-2A (S-2A) data to urban ecosystem service mapping and to investigate spatial ecosystem service characteristics with landscape metrics through a novelmethod. Service pattern changes between 2005 and 2015 are mapped for Beijing, China. Landscape metrics are used to qualitatively evaluate urban ecosystem service provision bundle changes. S-2A and Landsat TM data are segmented and classified with SVM, distinguishing three artificial and four natural classes based on ecosystem function. Spatial characteristics influencing ecosystem services are quantified with seven landscape metrics. Beijing's urban development is characterized by reduction in agricultural areas in the urban fringe in favor of built-up areas, urban green space, and golf courses. A transformation of old suburban agglomerations into urban green space can be observed. The planar increase in urban areas is accompanied by the creation of managed urban green space. Service bundles based on land cover classes and spatial characteristics decreased more than 30% for bundles that represent food supply, noise reduction, waste treatment, and global climate regulation. Temperature regulation/moderation of climate extremes, recreation/place values/social cohesion, and aesthetic benefits/cognitive development are least affected. This new approach of extending the ecosystem service concept through integration of spatial characteristics of ecosystem service provisional patches through landscape metrics is believed to give a more realistic appraisal of ecosystem services in urban areas.

Genom en litteraturstudie identifierades ett flertal olika metoder som kan användas för att uppskatta, mäta och modellera oskyddade trafikanters rörelsemönster. En utvärdering och jämförelse av metodernas pålitlighet och lämplighet för framtida implementering i Sverige är dock svår i dagsläget på grund av stora skillnader i studiernas ansatser. Framtida metoder kommer med stor sannolikhet förlita sig på individers mobila rörelsedata, insamlade med smart teknologi genom applikationer, platsbaserade tjänster och spårning genom rumsliga nätverk såsom telekommunikationsnätverk, globala navigationssystem eller Bluetooth.Syftet med denna studie var att genom en litteraturstudie kartlägga olika tekniker och metoder som kan användas för uppskattning av oskyddade trafikanters exponering och rörelsemönster för användning vid riskkartering och andra spatiala riskanalyser. Vi genomförde två delstudier: (i) en internationell kartläggning av hur tidigare forskning som använt sig av geografiska analyser har kvantifierat exponering och rörelsemönster bland fotgängare och cyklister, och (ii) en litteraturgranskning av nya metoder för att mäta exponering.Den internationella litteraturgranskningen visade att man enbart i ett fåtal studier använt sig av faktiska exponeringsdata i studier av geografiska skademönster bland oskyddade trafikanter. De flesta metoder som bygger på direkt uppskattning av trafikanter i rörelse (t.ex. genom att räkna cyklister) kan vara svåra att generalisera eftersom detta vanligtvis görs på specifika platser eller under vissa tider och på ett icke-heltäckande sätt över vägnätet. Att använda sig av resedatamodeller för att uppskatta exponering på vägsegmentnivå kan vara ett genomförbart tillvägagångssätt, vilket framgår av flera studier som analyserats. De vanligaste uppskattningsmetoderna som används i Sverige idag är flödesmätningar och resvaneundersökningar. Internationellt har flera studier utförts med flera andra metoder som kan vara intressanta även för implementering i Sverige. Främst bland dem är analyser på data från lånecyklar och GPS-data från crowdsourcing med mobilapplikationer. Betydligt fler studier kunde identifieras som rör uppskattning av cyklister än fotgängare. Resvaneundersökningar är ett bra alternativ för att undersöka generella trender över tid. Dock saknas rumslig noggrannhet och det är svårt att kartlägga resandet i en stad endast baserat på resvaneundersökningar. Genom att kombinera data från resvaneundersökningar med befolkningsstatistik kan enkla sketchplaneringar genomföras. Ofta görs dessa modeller med enkla och lättåtkomliga data vilket gör att metoderna är lätta att genomföra och billiga. Det finns en mängd olika tekniker för att implementera flödesmätningar på oskyddade trafikanter i praktiken. Tekniskt sett är det genomförbart att applicera stickprovsmodeller på liknande vis vad som görs i vägnätet för fordonstrafik. En bra uppskattning för resmönstret hos trafikanterna kräver dock många mätningar, detta medför kostnader i form av både utrustning och arbetstid. I nuläget sker förmodligen för få flödesmätningar i de flesta svenska städer, speciellt mätningar av gångtrafikanter för att kunna applicera en sådan metod med ett acceptabelt resultat. Flödesmätningar kan dock användas i kombination med andra metoder för att bekräfta deras resultat. Flödesmätningar är förmodligen den effektivaste metoden för att kontrollera resmönster på små geografiska områden. En känslig fråga som begränsar användning av spårningsteknik idag genom nätverkstriangulering, Bluetooth eller mobila applikationer är personlig integritet. Utöver detta är det en högre risk att sårbara delar av befolkningen (t.ex. barn och äldre) exkluderas av automatisk spårning då dessa individer med större sannolikhet inte medför smart teknisk utrustning. Ändå anses denna teknik mycket framtidsorienterad, effektiv, billig och pålitlig, speciellt när lokaliseringsenheter börjar prata med varandra, när mängden insamlade data och dess tillgänglighet ökar och om dagens begränsningar gällande personlig integritet och lagstiftning förändras.

This study investigates urbanization and its potential environmental consequences in Shanghai andStockholm metropolitan areas over two decades. Changes in land use/land cover are estimated fromsupport vector machine classifications of Landsat mosaics with grey-level co-occurrence matrix fea-tures. Landscape metrics are used to investigate changes in landscape composition and configurationand to draw preliminary conclusions about environmental impacts. Speed and magnitude of urbaniza-tion is calculated by urbanization indices and the resulting impacts on the environment are quantified byecosystem services. Growth of urban areas and urban green spaces occurred at the expense of croplandin both regions. Alongside a decrease in natural land cover, urban areas increased by approximately 120%in Shanghai, nearly ten times as much as in Stockholm, where the most significant land cover changewas a 12% urban expansion that mostly replaced agricultural areas. From the landscape metrics results,it appears that fragmentation in both study regions occurred mainly due to the growth of high densitybuilt-up areas in previously more natural/agricultural environments, while the expansion of low densitybuilt-up areas was for the most part in conjunction with pre-existing patches. Urban growth resulted inecosystem service value losses of approximately 445 million US dollars in Shanghai, mostly due to thedecrease in natural coastal wetlands while in Stockholm the value of ecosystem services changed very lit-tle. Total urban growth in Shanghai was 1768 km2and 100 km2in Stockholm. The developed methodologyis considered a straight-forward low-cost globally applicable approach to quantitatively and qualitativelyevaluate urban growth patterns that could help to address spatial, economic and ecological questions inurban and regional planning.

The potential of high-resolution optical satellite images for mapping of ecologically important urban space is investigated in this study. Both a GeoEye-1 and a Landsat 8 scene over central Shanghai were first segmented by two different algorithms and then classified into seven urban classes by SVM. Shadows in the pan-sharpened GeoEye-1 image were masked out and replaced by the corresponding pan-sharpened classified Landsat 8 image. Largest confusions occurred between sealed and permeable but non-vegetated surfaces, and between low-rise residential and high-rise commercial buildings. Based on the classification result, ecosystem service balances, supply and demand was modelled for each particular land cover class. Classification accuracies of 88% and 91% could be reached, indicating the suitability of the underlying data and method for this application domain. The KTH-SEG segmentation algorithm slightly outperformed the one implemented in eCognition. The highest supply of ecosystem services was found in water bodies whereas high-rise built-up areas revealed largest demands.

Denna rapport, som redovisar del 2 av projektet Social sårbarhet för klimatrelaterade hot, syftar till att ta fram ett generellt sårbarhetsindex för Sverige, men också specifika index för tre olika naturhot: översvämning (älv respektive kust), skogsbrand och ras/skred/erosion. För dessa specifika index har sårbarheten kombinerats med en bedömd exponering för de tre olika hoten. Analysen är gjord på kommun- och RegSO-nivå.

Background: Closing delivery units increases travel time for some women. Whether increased travel time is associated with maternal outcomes is important for understanding the consequences of such closures. Previous studies are limited in measuring travel time and restricted to the outcome of caesarean section. Methods: Our population-based cohort includes data from the Swedish Pregnancy Register for women giving birth between 2014 and 2017 (N = 364,630). We estimated travel time from home to the delivery ward using coordinate pairs of actual addresses. The association between travel time and onset of labour was modelled using multinomial logistic regression, and logistic regression was used for the outcomes postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) and obstetric anal sphincter injury (OASIS). Findings: Over three-quarters of women had ≤30 min travel time (median 13.9 min). Women who travelled ≥60 min arrived to care sooner and laboured there longer. Women with further to travel had increased adjusted odds ratio (aOR) of having an elective caesarean section (31–59 min aOR 1.11; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.07–1.16; ≥60 min aOR 1.25; 95% CI 1.16–1.36) than spontaneous onset of labour. Women (at full term with spontaneous onset) living ≥60 min away had reduced odds of having a PPH (aOR 0.84; 95% CI 0.76–0.94) or OASIS (aOR 0.79; 95% CI 0.66–0.94). Interpretation: Longer travel time increased the odds of elective caesarean section. Women with furthest to travel arrived sooner and spent more time in care; although they had a lower risk of PPH or OASIS, they also tended to be younger, have a higher body mass index and were Nordic born. 

Accurate population data is crucial for assessing exposure in disaster risk assessments. In recent years,there has been a signifcant increase in the development of spatially gridded population datasets.Despite these datasets often using similar input data to derive population fgures, notable diferencesarise when comparing them with direct ground-level observations. This study evaluates the precisionand accuracy of food exposure assessments using both known and generated gridded populationdatasets in Sweden. Specifcally focusing on WorldPop and GHSPop, we compare these datasetsagainst ofcial national statistics at a 100 m grid cell resolution to assess their reliability in foodexposure analyses. Our objectives include quantifying the reliability of these datasets and examiningthe impact of data aggregation on estimated food exposure across diferent administrative levels.The analysis reveals signifcant discrepancies in food exposure estimates, underscoring the challengesassociated with relying on generated gridded population data for precise food risk assessments.Our fndings emphasize the importance of careful dataset selection and highlight the potential foroverestimation in food risk analysis. This emphasises the critical need for validations against groundpopulation data to ensure accurate food risk management strategies.

Studien har tagit fram ett sårbarhetsindex på kommunal nivå i Sverige, baserat på 37 socio-ekonomiska variabler. Metoden som utvecklats i USA bygger på statistisk analys (PCA) och visualisering i ett GIS. Resultaten visar på tydliga regionala skillnader för social sårbarhet. Metoden behöver fortsatt utveckling, med studier för att öka förståelsen för vad som skapar sårbarhet i en svensk kontext.

In Europe, flash floods are one of the most significant natural hazards, causing serious risk to life and destruction of buildings and infrastructure. The intense rain causing those floods has a few different names, however, with very similar meaning. The term chosen in this study, ‘cloudburst’, was introduced by Woolley (1946) as “…a torrential downpour of rain which by its spottiness and relatively high intensity suggests the bursting and discharge of the whole cloud at once”. While these events play an important role in the ongoing flood risk management discussion, they are under-represented among flood models.

The main aim of this study is to demonstrate an approach by showing how methods and techniques can be integrated together to construct a catastrophe model for flash flooding of Jönköping municipality in Sweden. The model is developed in the framework of the ‘Oasis Loss Modelling Framework’ platform, jointly with end-users from the public sector and the insurance industry. Calibration and validation of the model were conducted by comparisons against three historical cloudburst events and corresponding insurance-claim data.

The analysis has shown that it is possible to get acceptable results from a cloudburst catastrophe model using only rainfall data, and not surface-water level as driving variable. The approach presented opens up for such loss modelling in places where complex hydraulic modelling cannot be done because of lacking data or skill of responsible staff. The Swedish case study indicates that the framework presented can be considered as an important decision making tool, by establishing an area for collaboration between academia; insurance businesses; and local authorities, to reduce long-term disaster risk in Sweden.

Cloudburst flash floods cause big casualties and economic losses. This study primarily investigated if a cloudburst catastrophe (cat) model could be constructed to meaningfully assess such a hazard, exposure and vulnerability in Swedish urban context. Rainfall intensity was used directly as hazard measure, bypassing hydraulic water-level modelling, to predict vulnerability. The Splash (Swedish pluvial modelling analysis and safety handling) cloudburst-disaster model was constructed using the Oasis Loss Modelling Framework, and was based on individual property values and building locations, property-level insurance-loss data, high-resolution geographical data, and rainfall data from a dense municipal gauge network in the city of Jönköping. One major cloudburst event was used to derive a vulnerability curve. The following two events were used for validation and supported the hypothesis that the vulnerability curve changed with time because of municipal flood-risk-reduction measures after the first event. A faulty rain gauge during the first event, replaced by a trustworthy private gauge, clarified the very high sensitivity to cloudburst input. Given the limited amount of loss data, our results were uncertain but they pointed towards possible ways to further this study with other loss data at other locations, possibly using more easily available aggregated loss data. We concluded that a cat model based only on rainfall intensity provided acceptable results, thus providing an opening for future, simplified cloudburst cat models applicable in most geographical contexts where reliable cloudburst data are available, especially in cities with limited topographic data and hydraulic-modelling capacity.

Land cover change monitoring in rapidly urbanizing environments based on spaceborne remotely sensed data and measurable indicators is essential for quantifying and evaluating the spatial patterns of urban landscape change dynamics and for sustainable urban ecosystems management. The objectives of the study are to analyse the spatio-temporal evolution of urbanization patterns of Kigali, Rwanda over the last three decades (from 1984 to 2016) using multi-temporal Landsat data and to assess the associated environmental impact using landscape metrics and ecosystem services. Visible and infrared bands of Landsat images were combined with derived Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) variance texture and digital elevation model (DEM) data for pixel-based classification using a support vector machine (SVM) classifier. Seven land cover classes were derived with an overall accuracy exceeding 87% with Kappa coefficients around 0.8. As most prominent changes, cropland was reduced considerably in favour of built-up areas that increased from 2.13 km2 to 100.17 km2 between 1984 and 2016. During those 32 years, landscape fragmentation could be observed, especially for forest and cropland. The landscape configuration indices demonstrate that in general the land cover pattern remained stable for cropland, but that it was highly changed for built-up areas. Ecosystem services considered include regulating, provisioning and support services. Estimated changes in ecosystem services amount to a loss of 69 million US dollars (USD) as a result of cropland degradation in favour of urban areas and in a gain of 52.5 million USD within urban areas. Multi-temporal remote sensing is found as a cost-effective method for analysis and quantification of urbanization and its effects using landscape metrics and ecosystem services. 

Mapping urbanization and ensuing environmental impacts using satellite data combined with landscape metrics has become a hot research topic. The objectives of the study are to analyze the spatio-temporal evolution of urbanization patterns of Kigali, Rwanda over the last three decades (from 1984 to 2015) using multitemporal Landsat data and to assess the associated environmental impact using landscape metrics. Landsat images, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Grey Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) variance texture and digital elevation model (DEM) data were classified using a support vector machine (SVM). Eight landscape indices were derived from classified images for urbanization environment impact assessment. Seven land cover classes were derived with an overall accuracy exceeding 88% with Kappa Coefficients around 0.8. As most prominent changes, cropland was reduced considerably in favour of built-up areas that increased from 2,349 ha to 11,579 ha between 1984 and 2015. During those 31 years, the increased number of patches in most land cover classes illustrated landscape fragmentation, especially for forest. The landscape configuration indices demonstrate that in general the land cover pattern remained stable for cropland but it was highly changed in built-up areas. Satellite-based analysis and quantification of urbanization and its effects using landscape metrics are found to be interesting for grassroots and provide a cost-effective method for urban information production. This information can be used for e.g. potential design and implementation of early warning systems that cater for urbanization effects.

Rapid urbanization in developing countries often results in uncontrolled urban growth. In order to support sustainable urban development, reliable and up-to-date information on urban land cover changes and their environmental impact is needed. In this study, we aim at evaluating the potential of Sentinel-2 (S-2) Multi-spectral Instrument (MSI) data for urban land cover change monitoring and for analyzing resulting impacts on Ecosystem Services (ES) provision in Kigali, Rwanda. Land cover classification into eight distinct urban classes (84% overall accuracies, 0.8 Kappa) was performed on data from 2016 and 2021 using a hybrid approach combining Random Forest with a U-Net-based impervious surface segmentation that improved the delineation of urban areas. The bi-temporal land cover maps were then analyzed regarding landscape structure using Landscape Metrics (LM). Ecosystem service bundles were derived for both years and their changes were summarized. Service providing areas were further evaluated in terms of changes in spatial attributes and structure of patches. ES were aggregated into eight bundles and grouped into provisioning, regulating and supporting services. The bundles were further analyzed using a matrix spatially linking landscape units with service supply and demand budgets. The results illustrated that three urban development scenarios can be distinguished including infill through housing and infrastructures development in core urban areas, urban sprawl in fringe zones and the development of urban patches at distant locations intercepted by cropland. The results revealed that the changes in LM negatively affected ES supply mainly through a decrease in cropland and forest. The expansion of built-up areas resulted in a high demand for provisioning and regulating services, especially food and water provision, surface runoff mitigation and erosion control. This is the first study demonstrating that detailed monitoring of urbanization and resulting environmental impacts can be performed with open access S-2 MSI data in Sub-Saharan Africa. Moreover, the framework developed in this study has the potential to be transferred to other Sub-Saharan cities.

Changes in urban development trajectories towards renewable energy sources and compact, energy- efficient urban agglomerations will have major impacts on ecosystem services, which cities are dependent on but tend to overlook. Such ecosystem services can be provisioning, regulating and cultural ecosystem services, around which competition over land and water resources will increase with energy system shifts. Much of the land and water use conflicts can be foreseen to take place within urbanising regions, which simultaneously is the living environment of a major part of the human population today. In order to inform critical policy decisions, integrated assessment of urban energy system options and ecosystem services is necessary. For this purpose, the model integration platform Land Evolution and impact Assessment Model (LEAM) is built and empowered with models representing urban form, energy supply and use, transportation, and ecological processes and services, all related to the land and water use evolution. These types of analyses of interacting sub- systems require an advanced model integration platform, yet open for learning and for further development, with high visualisation capacity. Case studies are performed for the cities of Stockholm, Chicago and Shanghai, where urbanisation scenarios are under development. In the case study LEAMStockholm, scenarios for urban compaction and urban sprawl with different energy and water system solutions are being developed, in order to explore the sustainability of urban policy options. This will enable integrated policy assessment of complex urban systems, with the goal to increase their sustainability.

In order to build competence for sustainability analysis and assessment of urban systems, it is seen as essential to build on models representing urban form, landuse and transportation, urban metabolism, as well as ecological processes. This type of analysis of interacting sub-systems requires an advanced model integration platform, yet open for learning and for further development. Moreover, since the aim is to increase urban experience with ecosystem management in the wide sense, the platform needs to be open and easily available, with high visualisation capacity. For this purpose, the LEAM model was applied to the Stockholm Region and two potential future scenarios were developed, resulting from alternative policies. The scenarios differed widely and the dense urban development of Scenario Compact could be visualised, destroying much of the Greenstructure of Stockholm, while Scenario Urban Nature steered the development more to outer suburbs and some sprawl. For demonstration of the need for further development of biodiversity assessment models, a network model tied to a prioritised ecological profile was applied and altered by the scenarios. It could be shown that the Greenstructure did not support this profile very well. Thus, there is a need for dynamic models for negotiations, finding alternative solutions and interacting with other models. The LEAM Stockholm case study is planned to be further developed, to interact with more advanced transport and land use models, as well as analysing energy systems and urban water issues. This will enable integrated sustainability analysis and assessment of complex urban systems, for integration in the planning process in Stockholm as well as for comparative sustainability studies between different cities, with the goal to build more sustainable urban systems and to increase urban experiences in ecosystem management.

Att förstå och sätta mått på sårbarheter hos människor och samhälle är centralt för att reducera risker. I denna rapport utforskas social sårbarhet för olika klimathot i Norden i tre delar: en litteraturstudie av den vetenskapliga kunskapen i en nordisk kontext, en sammanställning av grå litteratur inom området, och ett speciellt fokuskapitel som belyser rättvisedimensionen kopplat till social sårbarhet.

As one of the most important subsystems in cities, urban street networks have recently been well studied by using the approach of complex networks. This paper proposes a growing model for self-organized urban street networks. The model involves a competition among new centers with different values of attraction radius and a local optimal principle of both geometrical and topological factors. We find that with the model growth, the local optimization in the connection process and appropriate probability for the loop construction well reflect the evolution strategy in real-world cities. Moreover, different values of attraction radius in centers competition process lead to morphological change in patterns including urban network, polycentric and monocentric structures. The model succeeds in reproducing a large diversity of road network patterns by varying parameters. The similarity between the properties of our model and empirical results implies that a simple universal growth mechanism exists in self-organized cities.

The concepts landscape and biocultural heritage are based on anintegrated view of nature and cultural heritage. This paperinvestigates the potential of using a low-budget method forintegrating information on human impact and natural responsesin the vegetation of boreal forested Scandinavia. The informationfrom two national databases in Sweden – the National Inventoryof Landscapes in Sweden (NILS) covering surveyed vegetation,and the Register of Ancient Monuments (Fornsök) – werecombined and visualised using a Geographical Information System(GIS). In total, five sites were investigated. No connection betweenhuman impact and vegetation was detected at any of them. Thisnegative result is partly due to gaps in time and scale, but mainlyto sectorised survey methods not paying attention to bioculturalheritage, landscape perspectives or long-term processes. Thepaper concludes that further development of survey methods andregisters targeting contexts and processes are called for.

The concept of vulnerability has obtained increased research interest due to the ongoing climate change. The concept has a broad and general meaning which makes it necessary to specify what it actually means in any specific context. In exposure to climate risks, it is important to highlight who and what is vulnerable to climate-related hazards. The concept of social vulnerability derives from ongoing research in disaster, developmental, and socio-geographic sciences. Social vulnerability emphasises the social dimension of vulnerability and how different factors in interaction contribute to influence who is vulnerable. This scoping review is part of a larger project that aimed at increasing the understanding of social vulnerability in a Swedish and Nordic context. The review explores what Nordic literature on vulnerability related to climate hazards has identified as relevant for social vulnerability. 32 articles were included and underwent content analysis. The analysis process was characterised by the involvement of the project group in an iterative cross-disciplinary approach to the topic. This study concludes that social vulnerability is a dynamic process in both time and space; the degree of spatial resolution of vulnerability assessments impacts the possibility to detect vulnerable groups; it is in the combination of factors that social vulnerability emerges; and that the finding of risk perception re-emphasises the agency of the individual.