Central Baltic Project Database - Waterways lakes and rivers

GreenAgri reduced the leaching of nutrients from agriculture to surface water and Baltic Sea

kersti — Mon, 03 May 2021 10:49:50 +0000

GreenAgri introduced and tested environmentally-friendly management of organic fertilizers in Estonia and Latvia. The project worked in several fields:

Increased the knowledge, awareness of farmers, governmental agencies in Estonia and Latvia

Project developed a number of reviews and studies analysing manure application technologies, manure storage and also manure handling economic aspects of the various stages. The documents developed can be accessed in our programme project results database and also project partners websites.

Introduced new methods and technologies to reduce nutrient runoffs

22 farms were selected to participate in the test programme in both countries.

The opportunities for improving soil fertility, productivity and also to reduce nutrient losses were explored in test farms in cooperation with experts. The farms carried out soil, water and manure analyses, organized crop rotations and prepared manure application plans. Farmers also had possibility to be acquainted with best practices Denmark and Finland. The entrepreneurs participated also in a whole series of trainings. Manure and soil analyses were performed in demo fields from the spring of 2017 until the end of 2018.

The main finding of the evaluation of the activities of the demo farms was the fertilization plan is key to the efficient management of manure, both environmentally and economically point of view.

Improved co-operation between farmers and governmental organizations in development and implementation of environmental regulations

Interested parties (legislation creators, paying agencies, supervisors, consultants and farmers) met at joint events to cover all relevant issues.

The impact of implemented project activities to the nutrient content in the soil reveals during longer period of time. It can be concluded that in most of the pilot farms the improvements were achieved or are likely to be achieved in regard reducing the inflows of nutrients into ground water.

The project has developed and uploaded following material:

Comparative Survey of Manure Spreading Technologies
GreenAgri brochure (In Estonian)

For more information, visit the project website: www.epkk.ee/greenagri

Tags:

Agriculture and fisheries and forestry

Waterways lakes and rivers

Sustainable management of natural resources

Attachment:

GreenAgri orgaanilise vaetise keskkonnasobralik majandamine

Analysis of investment needs of farmers arising from the requirements of the Water Act (EST)

Category:

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

At a glance text:

Increased the knowledge, awareness of farmers, governmental agencies in Estonia and Latvia
Introduced new methods and technologies to reduce nutrient runoffs
Improved co-operation between farmers and governmental organizations in development and implementation of environmental regulations

Project link:

Environmentally-friendly Management of Organic Fertilizers in Agriculture

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.

BLASTIC – Less marine litter through mapping and monitoring

Ari Brozinski — Fri, 17 Jan 2020 09:01:07 +0000

BLASTIC developed new methodology and approaches to map sources, impacts and pathways of marine litter. Mapping approaches were combined with monitoring methods to produce the ‘BLASTIC riverine plastic litter monitoring method’ guidelines.

Additionally, BLASTIC also produced a list that identifies and prioritises measures to reduce litter streams from land to sea. The list helps municipalities to create local marine litter action plans. The guidelines and the list are accompanied by a socioeconomic report that looks at the impact of marine litter.

The project tested its methodology in pilot areas, where concrete plastic marine litter was removed. The pilot along with the created materials served the general aim to increase knowledge and awareness about plastic, micro plastics and hazardous substances among different target groups. As part of this, a knowledge bank (https://www.blastic.eu/knowledge-bank/) was setup.

Tags:

Evaluation systems and results

Waterways lakes and rivers

Waste and pollution

Attachment:

Guidelines for the BLASTIC riverine plastic litter monitoring method

BLASTIC LMLAP GUIDLINES DOCUMENT

Results and experiences from the plastic litter monitoring in the BLASTIC pilot areas

A synopsis of BLASTIC results

Category:

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

At a glance text:

Guidelines to map and monitor plasitc litter
Better planning of marine litter action plans
A working pilot

Project link:

Plastic waste pathways into the Baltic Sea

NutriTrade - Reduced nutrient load through cost-effective measures

Ari Brozinski — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 06:25:32 +0000

NutriTrade reduced nutrient load to the Baltic Sea through cost-effective pilot measures. These included pilot projects, creating a crowdfunding platform for nutrient offset and policy analysis.

Pilot projects

The Pilots developed new concepts for nutrient reduction and provided new information on the feasibility of the methods and on their cost-efficiency as a nutrient removal measure
In total, the pilots contributed to the removal of 6 t of phosphorus from the Baltic Sea in 2015-18 and will continue to cut phosphorus loading in the future.
Pilot Gypsum reduced phosphorus runoff by 50% (1.3-2.3 t in the first 1,5 years).
Pilot Fish resulted in phosphorus removal of 4,2 t by 2018 and will continue to remove phosphorus in the future, too.
Pilot Mussel removed 65 kg phosphorus.

Pilot measures are being put into practice in other geographical areas and institutionalised:

Finnish authorities are planning the introduction of gypsum amendment of fields into the public support schemes.
Up to 3500 hectares will be treated by gypsum in 2018-20 in river Vantaa and Porvoo catchment areas.
Gypsum treatment will be tested e.g. in Poland.

The Nutribute crowdfunding platform

A functioning nutrient offset platform for the Baltic Sea available at nutribute.org enables the meeting of project owners and voluntary donors.
A transparent framework for measuring cost efficiency (€/kg) of nutrient reduction efforts and identifying new innovative reduction methods.
A mechanism that enables companies, municipalities, associations, private citizens etc. to neutralize their nutrient footprint.
A sustainable financing mechanism for innovations/measures which reduce nutrients from the Baltic Sea but have not yet become commercially viable or included in institutional financing frameworks

The policy briefs published by Pilot Gypsum recommend large-scale use of gypsum amendment in Finland and consider it also elsewhere in the Baltic Sea region. The Policy Briefs have been utilized by HELCOM as well as the Finnish Ministry of the Environment and the Finnish Ministry of the Agriculture and Forestry in planning a support scheme for the measure.

Tags:

Institutional cooperation and cooperation networks

Waterways lakes and rivers

Attachment:

Nutribute brochure

NutriTrade Policy Brief 1, Gypsum Amendment and Large Scale Use

NutriTrade Policy Brief 2 Gypsum Amendment and Policy

NutriTrade Policy Brief 3 Nutrient Offsets

Pilot fish final report

Pilot mussel final report

Summary of Pilot Gypsum

Category:

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

At a glance text:

Crowdfunding platform for nutrient offset
Successful pilot areas with 6 t reduced phosphorus
Implementation on policy level

Project link:

Piloting a Nutrient Trading Scheme in the Central Baltic

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: