We depend totally on water. This applies to all its uses, from the water that sustains our bodies to its functions in irrigation, as an industrial raw material, for power generation and transport, and so forth. Eutrophication threatens our water, which is essential to life. For several years, two Mistra research programmes have focused on tackling various water-related problems, including eutrophication of Swedish waters. VASTRA (the Swedish Water Management Research Programme) has been based on a local and regional perspective, while MARE (Marine Research on Eutrophication) has had a more international outlook.
VASTRA has worked on a broad front, involving researchers with a background in the social, as well as natural, sciences. Its purpose has been to investigate and develop strategies for sustainable management of our common water resources, i.e. all groundwater and surface water.
The work of the various VASTRA research teams has yielded knowledge and tools that Sweden´s water resource managers can bring them to bear in their current work on action programmes in the various drainage areas (catchments). The natural scientists have, for example, developed chemical and physical models as a basis for planning cost-effective measures to reduce eutrophication. The social scientists have investigated the scope for new-style water resource management to genuinely promoting more systematic and efficient use of aquatic resources, and the obstacles it faces.
‘We´ve been working in an integrated way and consulting the planned users of our tools, especially municipalities, county administrative boards and water authorities. We´ve also had consultations with the water stakeholders concerned in Skåne, for example, where we´ve been drawing up various action scenarios. These show the consequences of different combinations of measures or no measures at all,´ says Anna Jöborn, the VASTRA programme manager.
In its consultations with users, VASTRA has also investigated their acceptance of various control instruments and forms of organisation; the value that different groups assign to water; and what they are prepared to pay to make a measure effective.
‘We´ve also studied how the stakeholders perceive the model tools and scenarios that have been developed. The conclusion is that it´s important to get the people with a stake in the matter involved, from the start, in the work of drawing up documentation for decision-making,´ she says.
Negotiation support
Just like VASTRA, MARE has developed a ‘decision support system´. This system, known as ‘Baltic Nest´, collates information on the Baltic environment, such as how the use and dispersion of nitrogen and phosphorus can be associated with costs of various measures to improve the environment. A user can quite simply, for example, estimate the cost of attaining a desired environmental improvement, by proposing measures to be taken in various countries.
‘Using Baltic Nest, we can show what taking or not taking various measures actually costs, and what the consequences of the different outcomes will be,´ says Fredrik Wulff, MARE´s scientific coordinator.
These days, there is a consensus among countries around the Baltic that discharges in one country affect the whole region. It is therefore extremely important for these countries to collaborate to attain a better marine environment.
‘You can´t work on Baltic issues from a purely national perspective. The original idea of Baltic Nest was to use it for documentation to support decisions in international negotiations among countries around the Baltic,´ Wulff says.
Examples of key MARE users are the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM) and its bodies, the EU and its water organisations. The farm and fisheries sectors, and central and regional bodies involved in the environment, agriculture, water and wastewater treatment issues are other important users.
Enduring results
Both VASTRA and MARE are currently being concluded. But the results of these programmes live on. The tools developed by VASTRA are administered by the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) and the SwedishUniversity of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), and will be useful to agencies involved in water management. The Baltic Nest will continue to exist in the Baltic Nest Institute (BNI), which is now taking shape. BNI is an independent research institute under the aegis of the Stockholm Resilience Centre atStockholmUniversityand at the National Environmental Research Institute,ÅrhusUniversity , in Roskilde ,Denmark.
‘Our hope is that we shall also form ties with researchers in theBaltic states , and in other countries around the Baltic as well,´ says Sif Johansson, MARE´s programme manager.
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