Central Baltic Project Database - Water management

SEABASED helped to improve the status of marine area by reducing nutrients from the seabed

kersti — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 13:23:43 +0000

Eutrophication is one of the most large-scale problems of the Baltic Sea. While the nutrient load from land-based sources has been cut significantly during past decades, nutrients that are stored in the seabed and are being released from the sediment back to the waterbody.

The SEABASED Project (2018-2021) examined and assessed measures that potentially improve the status of marine area by reducing this “internal load” of nutrients from the seabed. The project also strengthened cooperation and shared knowledge between scientific communities as well as among authorities, political decision makers and third sector actors of the region on the feasibility, risks, and sustainability of the different sea-based approaches in different scales and sea areas, as well as on their financial sustainability.

The project implemented the following small scale local pilots in Finland, Åland and Sweden:

Marl application to phosphorus-rich bottom sediments in coastal bays in Sweden (Kyrkviken, Djuröfladen, Farstaviken) and Finland (Kolkka) (Ekeroth 2021). The pilots and its outcomes are presented in the report.

Irrigation of two fields in Åland for two seasons, 2019 and 2020, with brackish, nutrient-rich near-bottom water from the strongly eutrophicated bays Kaldersfjärden and Ämnäsviken. The pilot's main goal was to evaluate this sea-based method for reducing nutrients in the marine environment and restore the coastal areas into better conditions while presenting a win-win solution for the farmers and the Baltic Sea. More information about approach, measurements and results in the report Nutrients from Sea to Field.
Harvesting of stickleback was piloted in Sweden and Åland with the aim to uptake nutrients with the fish biomass, and, in addition, to develop techniques to efficiently harvest the abundant population of these small fish. The report for the stickleback harvesting can be accessed here. Short video about this pilot and lessons learnt.

In addition to stickleback harvesting, the construction of artificial reef structures and small- scale wetlands, “pike factories” aiming to improve the condition of coastal ecosystem in pilot bays to be more suitable for spawning and “nursery” of young generations of pike and other predatory fish which spawn in shallow sea bays. Video presenting the aim of the artificial reefs.

Removing the top layer of the sediment was planned but it was not possible to implement because proposed prices were too high. Instead, the potential of sediment top-layer removal for phosphorus uptake and reducing the oxygen demand in the bottom was studied with incubation tests in laboratory scale. The report is available here. The study on the incubation of the sediment.

The concept for aquatic compensations was designed, related to the renovation of the Water Act in Åland. More information in the final report Nutrient compensation for aquatic coastal environment — legal, ecological and economic aspects in developing an offsetting concept.

The practical and scientific knowledge, including estimates on impacts and sustainability, risks, costs, and feasibility of available sea-based measures gained in the SEABASED and previous projects is compiled as in the Practical Guidelines for Sea-based Measures.

More information about the project results in the project website at www.seabasedmeasures.eu

List and links to the materials produced in the project.

Tags:

Water management

Coastal management and maritime issues

Waterways

lakes and rivers

Attachment:

Binding P with activated limestone__Pilot Report 2021

Potential for improving water quality in the Baltic Sea by sediment removal_Project report

Merisedimentin Inkubointikoe Seabased Tulosraportti

Nutrient Compensation for Aquatic Coastal Environment 2020

Practical Guidelines for sea-based measures 2021

Category:

Reduction of nutrients, hazardous substances and toxins inflow into the Baltic

At a glance text:

The SEABASED Project (2018-2021) examined and assessed measures that potentially improve the status of marine area by reducing this “internal load” of nutrients from the seabed.

Project link:

Seabased Measures in Baltic Sea Nutrient Management

NUTRINFLOW: Sustainable and approachable nutrient reduction

kersti — Thu, 15 Apr 2021 10:43:08 +0000

Knowledge gained from the pilot sites serve as a reference for a holisitic drainage management, offering farmers and other stake-holder organisations important information on these issues. The project also increased general awareness among farmers, advisors and municipal authorities and services on drainage techniques and approaches to integrate field and basic drainage measures. Due to its high relevance, good implementation and re-usability of results, the project gained the Baltic Sea Strategy Flagship (Flow Baltic) status. The outcomes of the NUTRINFLOW will be further utilised by the Ministry of Agriculture to prepare suggestions on nutrient retention measures in agricultural drainage to be supported in Latvia during the next planning period of the Common Agricultural Policy (2021-2027).

Project website: nutrinflow.eu

Tags:

Water management

Agriculture and fisheries and forestry

Category:

Reduction of nutrients, hazardous substances and toxins inflow into the Baltic

At a glance text:

• Reduced nutrients from agriculture to immediate water-sheds and into the Baltic Sea
• Five pilot sites with good experiences
• EUSBSR flagship project

Project link:

Practical actions for holistic drainage management for reduced nutrient inflow to Baltic Sea

iWater developed a city-specific integrated stormwater management strategy

kersti — Fri, 19 Mar 2021 10:26:02 +0000

Integrated Stormwater Management (iWater) project improves the urban planning in the cities of the Baltic Sea region through development of comprehensive stormwater management system which is integrated into the urban development processes of the city at all levels.

In result, each of 7 partner cities (Helsinki, Turku, Tartu, Jelgava, Riga, Söderhamn and Gävle) developed its own tailor-made solution – a city-specific stormwater management strategy. Each city also established an institutional model for stormwater management.

Project was implemented applying science-practice collaboration model developed by the Aalto University. The university helped to ensure the close cooperation between academic field and the practicioners when the project outputs were being prepared, when actions/strategies were planned in the pilot sites.

Since integrated storm management is relatively new subject in some BSR cities and knowledge, experience level are quite different, capacity building activities played and important role in the project. International, national capacity building workshops other events were organised where knowledge was presented, exchanged, project outputs were discussed and shared. 3 iWater summer schools (61 students from 17 countries/16 universities) were organised. In result 19 creative, innovative and multi-functional stormwater management solutions for 7 pilot sites of 7 iWater partner cities.

The project developed the following practical tools and guidelines which can be useful for the municipalities, urban planners, architects etc. outside iWater partnership:

Integrated Storm Water Management System Guidelines
The main purpose of the guidelines is to help other cities establish a comprehensive storm-water management approach and integrate it into the urban development processes at all levels. The guidelines provide very concrete tips, tools how to plan an implement the integrated storm water management in the municipality from scratch trough cycle (planning, implementation and monitoring).

Green Area Factor excel tool
Green Factor is a practical and user-friendly excel-based tool for urban planning. It ensures sufficient green infrastructure when building new lots in a dense urban environment. The Green Factor is calculated as the ratio of the scored green area to lot area. The target level for the lot can be achieved flexibly by the garden designer by selecting some of the 39 green elements, such as planted and maintained vegetation or various run-off water solutions, when designing the lot.

This tool was developed for the first time in 1997 in Berlin - “Biotope Area Factor1”. Later on similar tools were created/adapted based on Berlin also in other cities, for example Stockholm, Malm, Seattle and Toronto. Similar tool was developed also in Helsinki as a part of the EU-funded “Climate-proof city – tools for planning” (ILKKA) project in 2014. Based on the experiences with the tool’s usage and due to the increasing importance of stormwater management, an updated version of this tool was to be developed within the iWater project.
The Tool has been adopted and piloted in partner cities during the project: Riga, Jelgava, Tartu (Jaamamõisa area), Gävle, Söderhamn and Turku, and finally incorporated in the land-use planning process

Integrated Stormwater Management Toolbox
This toolbox introduces the most commonly used approaches and concrete tools for urban stormwater management. It gathers useful information for those interested in, or working with, the design, planning or management of urban water, in particular, landscape architects, architects, as well as urban planners and designers. The information is in an easily adaptable form, including further reading for those who wish to dive deeper. Furthermore, the toolbox focuses on approaches that are applicable or developed for northern climate conditions.

Tags:

Urban Development

Water management

Institutional cooperation and cooperation networks

Attachment:

Integrated Storm Water Management dissemination material

Helsinki Green Area Factor Tool - User manual for the Excel-based tool

External link:

Project website

Category:

Urban area covered with integrated urban management

At a glance text:

The iWater project designed stormwater planning tools and approaches and developed Integrated Stormwater Management concept that supports sustainable urban planning and create higher quality and more resilient urban environments in the Baltic Sea region.

Project link:

Integrated Storm Water Management

CB2East – new business opportunities for Finnish and Latvian companies

julia.jokelin — Wed, 24 Feb 2021 15:17:44 +0000

The project CB2East - Central Baltic Cleantech Clusters expanding to East of EU markets - generated Latvian and Finnish meta-cluster platforms, where complementary competences have leveraged partner’s capacities to enter new market and support SMEs internationalization strategies. More specifically, Baltic Cleantech Alliance provided functional collaboration aimed to increase export in Central-Asia; whereas in North-West Russia were developed collaboration models with local clusters to support the same targets. Baltic Cleantech Alliance became valued in the target markets and enhanced status of participating SMEs. Baltic Cleantech Alliance was largely recognized in target markets especially due to events that gathered large and high-level audiences.

In overall, meta-cluster activities

enhanced information on target markets situation and business opportunities
increased competences and capacities to enter new markets for participants, including better understanding of financial instruments, cultural awareness, support for strategy development
providing platform and tools for transnational cooperation, communication, match making and knowledge sharing
joint projects and other transnational cooperation formats of meta-cluster and its companies
new business value chains and commercially viable projects
increased involvement of companies into meta-cluster activities.

Moreover, the project innovated new market entry strategies and business models, including local representation offices, consortia approach etc. The project has improved capacities on national clusters to work in the transnational environment and adapt to the emerging challenges; developed their cooperation skills and capacity to innovate new collaboration models. Around 10 cooperation agreements and MoUs were signed during the project. The participating companies from both countries achieved real business deals and at least 5 companies have succeeded to have sales on target markets.

In more deteail, during the project it was identified well over 100 business leads from which 66 were relevant to companies. This led to 40 new business value chains including projects, pilots or submitted offers or tenders. The project provided deep market knowledge of Central Asia and North-West Russia and created clear vision how to integrate our interests in the target markets. As such, Baltic Cleantech Alliance elaborated clear service pallet to companies towards the new target market.

During the project lifecycle (2015-2018) several Finnish and Latvian companies agreed on cooperation and successfully participated in tenders, as well as cooperated with Russian, Central Asian and other European companies and organizations. The project developed collaboration patterns with local clusters and market entry integrators, for example in Northwest Russia. Moreover, FIN-LV collaboration improved significantly due to the project.

More information about the project and Baltic Cleantech Alliance from here.

Tags:

clustering and economic cooperation

SME and entrepreneurship

Water management

Category:

New cluster co-operation exporting to new markets

At a glance text:

5 new business deals and sales to the target markets
66 relevant business leads
40 new business value chain
290 enterprises receiving nonfinancial support
45 enterprises receiving support
45 enterprises supported to introduce new-to-the-market products

Project link:

Central Baltic Cleantech Clusters expanding to East of EU markets.

Waterchain - prevention of nutrients inflows in the Baltic Sea

Elisa Bertieri — Fri, 26 Jun 2020 12:24:13 +0000

Project Waterchain tackled the prevention of water pollution by using spatial planning and source-specific cost-effective technological solutions for water treatment including both science-based ones as well as practical knowledge. The cross-border co-operation partnership set up in the framework of Waterchain project, enabled by the wide complementary expertise of Finnish (incl. Åland), Estonian, Latvian and Swedish partners within the fields of water treatment led to the successful development and implementation of several practical innovative actions to prevent and reduce nutrients and hazardous substances inflows into the Baltic Sea. The project, focused on the main local problems and considered the feedbacks of the local target groups.

The technological methods used to reduce the inflow of nutrients and hazardous substances from inland waters were implemented during the project in participating countries as pilot investments. Crucial hotspot areas for nutrient loading were identified in pilot watersheds. Reduction activities were carried out in hotspot areas by installing and implementing a small scale innovative nutrient reduction systems on the nutrients sources as pilot measures: 4 pilots in Finland and 2 in Latvia. The seventh pilot was carried out in a laboratory.

In addition, the project identified three groups of hazardous substances based on Environmental Quality Standards (EQS) Directive 39/2013/EU and Baltic Sea Action Plan: pharmaceutical residues, pesticides and perfluorinated compounds. Activities to reduce the inflows into the watershed were initiated with a pilot in Swedish and Estonian pilot watersheds.

Tags:

Sustainable management of natural resources

Water management

Waterways lakes and rivers

Attachment:

Report_ Validation of Piloted Nutrient Removal Technologies

External link:

Waterchain website

Category:

Reduction of nutrients, hazardous substances and toxins inflow into the Baltic

At a glance text:

3 groups of hazardous substances identified
7 pilots watersheds

Project link:

Pilot watersheds as a practical tool to reduce the harmful inflows into the Baltic Sea.

NUTRINFLOW - Sustainable and approachable nutrient reduction

Ari Brozinski — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 06:13:01 +0000

NUTRINFLOW reduced nutrient losses from agriculture to immediate watersheds and into the Baltic Sea. Reduction was achieved through pilot investments implemented in Finland, Sweden and Latvia, where various nutrient sources were targeted.

Instead of the planned five nutrient sources, the project ended up choosing 11 sources. Actions included river channel restorations, building wetlands and flood plains, mounting or renovating culverts and improving subsurface drainage. Direct improvements from these actions were reduced nutrient losses in phosphorus and nitrogen.

Knowledge gained from the pilot sites serve as a reference for a holisitic drainage management, offering farmers and other stakeholder organisations important information on these issues. The project also increased general awareness among farmers, advisors and municipal authorities and services on drainage techniques and approaches to integrate field and basic drainage measures.

Due to its high relevance, good implementation and re-usability of results, the project gained the Baltic Sea Strategy Flagship (Flow Baltic) status.

The outcomes of the NUTRINFLOW will be further utilised by the Ministry of Agriculture to prepare suggestions on nutrient retention measures in agricultural drainage to be supported in Latvia during the next planning period of the Common Agricultural Policy (2021-2027).

Tags:

Water management

Waterways lakes and rivers

Agriculture and fisheries and forestry

Attachment:

Catchment area renovation instead of separate actions

Category:

Reduction of nutrients, hazardous substances and toxins inflow into the Baltic

At a glance text: