Saara Bäck

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.

Zoobenthos as Indicators of Ecological Status in Coastal Brackish Waters: A Comparative Study from the Baltic Sea

Abstract A new method for classifying soft-bottom zoobenthic assemblages along the Finnish coasts (northern Baltic Sea) is presented and tested against traditional physicochemical monitoring data in the complex Archipelago Sea. Although multivariate methods for assessing the state of the marine environment have become widely used, few numerical indices can operate over a wide salinity range. We compare indices currently in use and propose a new index, BBI (brackish water benthic index), for the low-saline and species-poor Baltic coastal waters. BBI offers a salinity-corrected tool for classification of the soft-bottom zoobenthos under the demands of the European Union Water Framework Directive.

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.

A PROPOSAL FOR A LONG-TERM BASELINE PHYTOBENTHOS MONITORING PROGRAMME FOR THE FINNISH BALTIC COASTAL WATERS: MONITORING SUBMERGED ROCKY SHORE VEGETATION

Several local surveys on the submerged vegetation have been conducted in past decades along the Finnish Baltic coastal areas. Surveys have been carried out by using various methods,which make the temporal comparisons of the results difficult.The need of a joint programme for coastal phytobenthic monitoringis emphasised by the Nordic Council of Ministers and HELCOM. TheFinnish coastal phytobenthic monitoring programme complements theBaltic HELCOM monitoring programme (COMBINE). It is primarily designed to reveal the effects of eutrophication. The programmeincludes general principles for selection of monitoring areas aswell as a proposal for monitored habitats, communities and species. The need of evaluated and tested field methods, datacollecting, interpretation and data storage are addressed in theQuality Assurance part. The cost-efficiency is secured by integrating the phytobenthos programme with the coastal water monitoring for obtaining the supporting data such like salinity,temperature and nutrients. In the design of the monitoring programme a special interest is paid on areas with high protection values such as Natura 2000 or HELCOMs BSPA (Baltic Sea Protected Areas) or on aspects that would support the implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive.