There are several environmental and ecological effects of shipping. However, these are rarely assessed in total in the scientific literature. Thus, the aim of this study was to summarize the different impacts of water-based transport on aquatic and nearshore ecosystems and to identify knowledge gaps and areas for future research. The review identified several environmental and ecological consequences within the main impact categories of water discharges, physical impacts, and air emissions. However, although quantitative data on these consequences are generally scarce the shipping contribution to acidification by SOx- and NOx-emissions has been quantified to some extent. There are several knowledge gaps regarding the ecological consequences of, for example, the increasing amount of chemicals transported on water, the spread of non-indigenous species coupled with climate change, and physical impacts such as shipping noise and artificial light. The whole plethora of environmental consequences, as well as potential synergistic effects, should be seriously considered in transport planning.

Road lighting causes unwanted ecological impact on species and habitats where species may be protected and/or light-sensitive. Yet, there is very little information available on how roadlighting should be ecologically designed while simultaneously considering energy efficiency and the regulations needed for safety reasons. The aim of this study was study designs of different dimensions regarding energy efficiency, ecological impact and the compliance with regulations for traffic safety. By using DIALux evo simulations with four different LED luminaires, different scenarios of road lighting designs (pole distance of 10m, 25m and 40m, and pole heights of 3m, 5m, and 8m) on a 7m wide road was evaluated. Ecological thresholds of 1 lux and 0.1 lux are possible to get below at distances from the road edge between 5–11m, and 8.5–20m, respectively. Results are discussed from the perspectives of increased demand on energy efficiency on road lighting.

Accurate prediction of community responses to global change drivers (GCDs) is critical given the effects of biodiversity on ecosystem services. There is consensus that human activities are driving species extinctions at the global scale, but debate remains over whether GCDs are systematically altering local communities worldwide. Across 105 experiments that included over 400 experimental manipulations, we found evidence for a lagged response of herbaceous plant communities to GCDs caused by shifts in the identities and relative abundances of species, often without a corresponding difference in species richness. These results provide evidence that community responses are pervasive across a wide variety of GCDs on long-term temporal scales and that these responses increase in strength when multiple GCDs are simultaneously imposed.Global change drivers (GCDs) are expected to alter community structure and consequently, the services that ecosystems provide. Yet, few experimental investigations have examined effects of GCDs on plant community structure across multiple ecosystem types, and those that do exist present conflicting patterns. In an unprecedented global synthesis of over 100 experiments that manipulated factors linked to GCDs, we show that herbaceous plant community responses depend on experimental manipulation length and number of factors manipulated. We found that plant communities are fairly resistant to experimentally manipulated GCDs in the short term (<10 y). In contrast, long-term (≥10 y) experiments show increasing community divergence of treatments from control conditions. Surprisingly, these community responses occurred with similar frequency across the GCD types manipulated in our database. However, community responses were more common when 3 or more GCDs were simultaneously manipulated, suggesting the emergence of additive or synergistic effects of multiple drivers, particularly over long time periods. In half of the cases, GCD manipulations caused a difference in community composition without a corresponding species richness difference, indicating that species reordering or replacement is an important mechanism of community responses to GCDs and should be given greater consideration when examining consequences of GCDs for the biodiversity–ecosystem function relationship. Human activities are currently driving unparalleled global changes worldwide. Our analyses provide the most comprehensive evidence to date that these human activities may have widespread impacts on plant community composition globally, which will increase in frequency over time and be greater in areas where communities face multiple GCDs simultaneously.

Light conditions are essential factors in traffic safety, but the relationship between light conditions and vehicle speed is not fully understood and has rarely been examined for trucks. We asked the following questions: I) if vehicle speed between brighter and darker conditions in clear weather will be different? II) if vehicle speeds are lower during rain and snow than in clear weather conditions? and if so III) if the speed reduction in rainy and snowy weather conditions is more substantial on roads without road lighting in darkness? We investigated how the speed of trucks was affected by weather conditions (clear, rain, and snowfall), daylight, darkness, and road lighting by using traffic and weather data from 25 locations on the Swedish road network. Seventeen of the 25 locations were roads with road lighting. Speed responses by 5,344,287 vehicle passages by trucks was included in the analyses, more specifically 3,659,940 passages by light-duty vehicles and 1,684,347 passages by heavy-duty vehicles. The data was extracted from hourly measurements for the period 2012-09-01 to 2014-05-31. No evidence of consistent patterns of speed differences with respect to lighting conditions (darkness, daylight, twilight or road lighting) under clear weather conditions were detected. Truck speeds decreased in response to snowfall, but not to rain, with the decrease dependant on the amount of snow. Effects of road lighting on speed reduction in rainy and snowy weather was not shown. 

Att använda vegetation för att minska halterna av luftföroreningar i tätorter har blivit alltmer vanligt. Tidigare studier har visat att vegetationen bör placeras nära källan för att underlätta rening av luften via filtrering. Det finns också andra aspekter på hur vegetationen ska designas för att ge positiva effekter på luftkvaliteten. Då placeringen av vegetation mycket nära trafiken också kan ge effekter på trafiksäkerheten har denna studie kombinerat de nya rekommendationerna avseende luftkvalitet med en genomgång av hur vegetation behandlas i de planeringsprocesser som är aktuella för vägnära vegetation och hur vägnära vegetation påverkar trafiksäkerheten. Denna studie har genomförts främst med hjälp av litteraturstudier, både av vetenskaplig litteratur och av handledningar och annan typ av skriftligt material inom området.

Viktiga slutsatser av studien är att vegetation behandlas på olika sätt i olika delar av planeringsprocesserna, vilket kan göra att hanteringen av vägnära vegetation ibland försvåras. Vår bedömning är att vägplanering och vegetationsplanering kan behöva integreras i fler fall.

Avseende trafiksäkerhet finns rekommendationer om att röja den vegetation som hindrar synbarheten, både direkt och genom att skugga behövlig belysning. Det finns också anledning att hålla stamdiametrar nere för att minska risken för allvarlig skada, samt att beakta hur vegetation kan ta upp krockkrafter och minska skaderisken. Vegetationen kan också ha positiva trafiksäkerhetseffekter genom visuell eller fysisk avgränsning, skydda mot bländning eller användas som en hastighetsdämpande åtgärd.

This study examined whether the rising trends of wild boar (Sus scrofa)-vehicle accidents in Sweden are accompanied by a higher amount of personal injuries and costs. Temporal trends in accident frequencies and the number of persons injured in wild boar-vehicle accidents were examined for 2003-2016, and the cost of wild boar-vehicle accidents was calculated. Results show increases in the number of personal injuries, and increased costs, particularly after 2010-2012. The total number of wild boar accidents correlated with the number of injured persons as well as with the number of accidents with personal injuries. Approximately one person (1.13%) is injured per 100 wild boar-vehicle accidents, and approximately one accident per 200 wild boar-vehicle accidents will result in one or more persons with injuries (0.5%). However, most of the persons injured have slighter injuries. Although the number of wild boar-vehicle accidents and the number of persons injured in the accidents have increased, the frequency of accidents resulting in personal injuries is still at low levels in comparison with, for example, frequencies of personal injuries for moose accidents. The cost for wild boar-vehicle accidents has increased between 2003 to 2016 and is currently estimated to vary between approximately EUR 9.66-12.31 million per year.

Abstract Global change is predicted to have major impacts on alpine and arctic ecosystems. Plant fitness and growth will be determined by how plants interact with each other at smaller scales. Local-scale neighbourhood interactions may be altered by environmental pertubations, which could fundamentally affect community structure. This study examined the effects of seven years of experimental warming and nutrient addition on overall changes in the community structure and patterns of interspecific interaction between neighbouring plant species in two contrasting alpine plant communities, mesic meadow and poor heath, in subarctic Sweden. We used a network approach to quantify the dissimilarity of plant interaction networks and the average number of interspecific neighbourhood interactions over time in response to different environmental perturbations. The results revealed that combined warming and nutrient addition had significant negative effects on how dissimilar plant interaction networks were over time compared with the control. Moreover, plant–plant neighbourhood interaction networks were more dissimilar over time in nutrient-poor heath than in nutrient-rich mesic meadow. In addition, nutrient addition alone and combined nutrient addition and warming significantly affected neighbourhood species interactions in both plant communities. Surprisingly, changes in interspecific neighbourhood interactions over time in both communities were very similar, suggesting that the nutrient-poor heath is as robust to experimental environmental perturbation as the mesic meadow. Comparisons of changes in neighbouring species interactions with changes in evenness and richness at the same scale, in order to determine whether diversity drove such changes in local-scale interaction patterns, provided moderate evidence that diversity was behind the changes in local-scale interspecific neighbourhood interactions. This implied that species might interact at smaller scales than those at which community measures were made. Overall, these results demonstrated that global change involving increased nutrient deposition and warming is likely to affect species interactions and alter community structure in plant communities, whether rich or poor in nutrients and species.