Pirkko Kauppila

Trends of phosphorus, nitrogen and chlorophyll a concentrations in Finnish rivers and lakes in 1975-2000.

During recent decades the amounts of nutrients discharged to Finnish surface waters have markedly decreased. This has been achieved by considerable investments in water protection, which were made mainly to improve municipal and industrial wastewater purification. We investigated whether these water protection measures have decreased phosphorus and nitrogen concentrations in Finnish rivers and lakes. In addition, possible trends in chlorophyll a concentrations in lakes were studied. The data consisted of a total of over 68000 monitoring results of 22 rivers and 173 lakes (or sub-basins of lakes) with different types of catchment areas. The study period covered the years 1975-2000 and the non-parametric Kendall Tau b and Seasonal Kendall tests were applied for detecting trends. Decreasing nutrient concentration trends were typical in many lakes and rivers earlier polluted by municipal and industrial wastewaters. Increasing nutrient concentration trends were common in smaller rivers and lakes receiving diffuse loading from agriculture. The results show that the investments directed towards wastewater purification have effectively improved the quality of Finnish inland waters. However, no clear effects of decreasing non-point loading were found. Thus, more effective measures should be directed towards decreasing non-point source loading.

The State of Finnish Coastal Waters in the 1990s

The ecological status of coastal waters still is an important environmental issue. Especially the shallow Finnish coastal zone is in many respects sensitive to pollution and eutrophication. The long term point-source loading of watercourses, especially by nutrients and harmful substances, as well as the indirect effects of increasing demand for different land use e.g agriculture and building activities in catchment areas have had deteriorating effects in many ways.

Influence of EU policy on agricultural nutrient losses and the state of receiving surface waters in Finland

In Finland, the first large-scale efforts to control nutrient loading from agriculture got under way with the introduction of the EU Agri-Environmental Program in 1995. We examined whether these efforts have decreased agricultural nutrient losses and improved the quality of receiving waters. To do so we used monitoring data on fluxes of nutrients and total suspended solids in agricultural catchments in 1990–2004 and on the water quality of agriculturally loaded rivers, lakes and estuaries in 1990–2005. No clear reduction in loading or improvement in water quality was detected. Hydrological fluctuations do not seem to have eclipsed the effects of the measures taken, since there was no systematic pattern in runoff in the period studied. The apparent inefficiency of the measures taken may be due to the large nutrient reserves of the soil, which slowed down nutrient reductions within the period studied. Simultaneous changes in agricultural production (e.g. regional specialisation) and in climate may also have counteracted the effects of agri-environmental measures. The actions to reduce agricultural loading might have been more successful had they focused specifically on the areas and actions that contribute most to the current loading.

Predicting oxygen in small estuaries of the Baltic Sea: a comparative approach

Coastal eutrophication, manifested as hypoxia and anoxia, is a global problem. Only a few empirical models, however, exist to predict bottom oxygen concentration and percentage saturation from nutrient load or morphometry in coastal waters, which are successfully used to predict phytoplankton biomass both in lakes and in estuaries. Furthermore, hardly any empirical models exist to predict bottom oxygen from land-use. A data set was compiled for 19 estuaries in the northern Baltic Sea, which included oxygen concentration and percentage saturation, water chemistry, estuary morphometry, and land-use characteristics. In regression analyses, bottom oxygen was predicted both as a function of the percentage of watershed under agriculture and of mean depth. These models accounted for ca. 55% of the variation in oxygen. Additionally, oxygen was linked to fetch (diameter of the area in the direction of the prevailing wind), which accounted for 30% of the variation in oxygen. This suggests that shallow Finnish estuaries are wind-sensitive. In pits (sub-thermocline waters of deep basins), near-bottom total nitrogen strongly correlated with oxygen percentage saturation ðR 2 ¼ 0:81Þ. Neither chlorophyll a, total phosphorus nor nutrient loading explained oxygen variation in entire estuaries or in pits, probably mainly due to annual sedimentation/sediment–water flux dynamics. On the basis of the results of

Evaluation of reaching the targets of the water framework directive in the Gulf of Finland.

This paper describes the development of the EU Water Framework Directive central water quality elements from 1970 to 2010 in the Gulf of Finland, a eutrophied sub-basin of the Baltic Sea. The likelihood of accomplishing the management objectives simultaneously is assessed using Bayesian networks. The objectives of good ecological status in winter-time total nitrogen and phosphorus, summer-time chlorophyll-a and summer-time Secchi depth have not been met yet. In addition, the results indicate that it is unlikely for them to be achieved in the near future, despite the decreasing trend in nutrient concentrations over the past few years. It was demonstrated that neither phosphorus nor nitrogen alone controls summertime plankton growth. Reaching good ecological status in nutrients does not necessarily lead to good ecological status of chlorophyll-a, even though a dependency between the parameters does exist. In addition, secchi-depth status is strongly related to chlorophyll-a status in three of the four study-areas.

A biological monitoring programme for the coastal waters of finland according to the EU water framework directive

The implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) establishes new requirements to traditional surface water monitoring. The monitoring programmes of coastal waters have to be reported to the European Commission by the end of 2006. WFD introduces the concept that the state of the coastal waters should be assessed mainly on biological quality elements i.e. phytoplankton, macrozoobenthos and macrophytes. Until now, the monitoring and assessment of the coastal waters in Finland have mainly been based on physico-chemical parameters and less on biological parameters. At the moment, the environmental authorities of the countries in the Baltic Sea Region are engaged in developing biological monitoring programmes, which are integrated to other coastal monitoring programmes. Our aim is to evaluate the present Finnish monitoring programme of coastal waters and improve its applicability in relation to the requirements of the WFD. A set of criteria has been developed to evaluate and supplement the existing monitoring programme with biological elements. This is a first effort to integrate biological monitoring with physico-chemical monitoring for reliable coastal assessments in Finland.

Approaches for integrated assessment of ecological and eutrophication status of surface waters in Nordic Countries

We review approaches and tools currently used in Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden) for integrated assessment of ‘ecological status’ sensu the EU Water Framework Directive as well as assessment of ‘eutrophication status’ in coastal and marine waters. Integration principles for combining indicators within biological quality elements (BQEs) and combining BQEs into a final-integrated assessment are discussed. Specific focus has been put on combining different types of information into indices, since several methods are currently employed. As a consequence of the variety of methods used, comparisons across both BQEs and water categories (river, lakes and coastal waters) can be difficult. Based on our analyses, we conclude that some principles and methods for integration can be critical and that a harmonised approach should be developed. Further, we conclude that the integration principles applied within BQEs are critical and in need of harmonisation if we want a better understanding of potential transition in ecological status between surface water types, e.g. when riverine water enters a downstream lake or coastal water body.

Participatory operations model for cost-efficient monitoring and modeling of river basins — A systematic approach

The worldwide economic downturn and the climate change in the beginning of 21st century have stressed the need for cost efficient and systematic operations model for the monitoring and management of surface waters. However, these processes are still all too fragmented and incapable to respond these challenges. For example in Finland, the estimation of the costs and benefits of planned management measures is insufficient. On this account, we present a new operations model to streamline these processes and to ensure the lucid decision making and the coherent implementation which facilitate the participation of public and all the involved stakeholders. The model was demonstrated in the real world management of a lake. The benefits, pitfalls and development needs were identified. After the demonstration, the operations model was put into operation and has been actively used in several other management projects throughout Finland.

The Role of Fisheries in Optimal Eutrophication Management

We analyze dynamically optimal eutrophication management using two controls, targeted fishing and reduction of external nutrient loads. Fishing removes nutrients from the water ecosystem, and the size of the fish stock also influences eutrophication through food web effects and other mechanisms. We show that fisheries have a role to play in cost-efficient water quality management in combination with external load reductions. Our numerical application considers phosphorus driven eutrophication, agricultural phosphorus abatement and fisheries targeted on cyprinids on a coastal bay in the Baltic Sea. The socially and privately optimal intensity of fishing efforts, phosphorus abatement and the resulting water quality are influenced by damages, revenues and costs. Furthermore, we show that the link between cyprinid fish stock and water quality, and the form of the fishing industry — sole owner or open access — have joint dynamics that lead to very different outcomes. A weak link between cyprinid stock and water quality is associated with socially optimal stock close to its maximum sustainable yield. This maximizes phosphorus removal. With a strong link, socially optimal stock and phosphorus removal are low. Coincidentally, open-access fishing sometimes yields socially desirable outcome automatically — a market failure in industry structure may counteract eutrophication.

Power and the material arrangements of a river basin management plan: the case of the Archipelago Sea

ABSTRACT The drive towards collaborative governance has raised critical questions about the hidden forms of power practised in consensual planning processes. In the field of water governance, the issue has been analysed in terms that treat power as an intrinsic property of actors or planning settings. Alternatively power is located in the discursive means mobilized by the human participants. Drawing from actor-network theory, this paper calls attention to the material arrangements constitutive for the practicing of power in target-driven, consensus-seeking planning. It sets focus on the obligatory passage points and factual closures through which a planning task links, for example, to ecosystems, policy principles and trajectories of governance. In the meantime, some other entities and issues may lose their planning-steering potentiality. As shown by the analysis of a river-basin planning process, the arrangements that end up steering consensus-seeking cannot be treated as merely discursive outputs operating upon a passive non-human reality. Materialities and living processes contribute to the outcome. However, the link is not deterministic. With different means of arrangement, the planning reality can – and, in the studied case, could have – end up different.