Water Resources Quality and Management in Baltic Sea Countries

The chapter takes a look at the Baltic Sea from various aspects to develop a synthesis of the existing knowledge and add a new perspective on the water bodies in the Baltic Countries Sea using RS. The Baltic Sea, with a composition that is neither sea nor fresh water, is one of the largest brackish water bodies in the world. The Baltic Sea Drainage Basin (BSDB) is a large heterogeneous region. The drainage basin is occupied by 14 countries and covers an area of 1,739,000 km² and home to about 84 million. There are 14 larger international river basins within the BSDB, with an approximate area of 1,050,000 km². Such river basins vary in size, many basin sharing countries, witnessed environmental issues, and how they are handled. Over 200 rivers discharge into the Baltic Sea, creating an area of about 1,700,000 km² of catchment and drainage that is about four times larger than the sea itself. This catchment area is considered to be part of the Large Marine Ecosystem of the Baltic Sea (BSLME). As a result of global warming, the future rise in sea level will affect the coastal regions of the world. Although the speed of sea-level rise is not clear, it will have serious and global implications. So how could one judge whether the land went up or the water went down? Well, a solution might be to calculate the occurrence frequency for a long time over a larger area, in this case, across the entire Baltic Sea. One of the solutions to cope with the rapidly changing environment is renewable energy. Wind and wave turbines are becoming increasingly common, although ensuring that they do as little harm as possible to the environment is crucial.

Recently, the region around the Baltic Sea has experienced stringent intergovernmental agreements and actions to regulate water resources among the Baltic countries. The region has also been influenced by various industrial, agricultural, and human activities, as well as several anthropogenic and natural inputs. In this context, multiple researchers have focused their work on understanding the water status and management among the Baltic Sea countries. The aim of this chapter is to represent a summary of the recent number of documents, states, and funding sponsors that contributed to the publications of “Water status in Baltic Sea countries”. This survey is retrieved from the Scopus and Web of Science databases from 2001 to 2019. Further, the chapter gives an overview of the water status and standards of some Baltic Sea countries that control the environmental features within the region. The essential suggestions and findings are summarized in the recommendations and conclusions sections.

The lack of water in the future will force society to find more sophisticated solutions for treatment and improvement of groundwater wherever it comes from. Contamination of soil and groundwater is a legacy of modern society, prevention of contaminants spread and secondary water reuse options shall be considered. The aim of the book chapter is to give oversight view on problems and challenges linked to groundwater quality in Eastern Baltic region whilst through case studies explaining the practical problems with groundwater monitoring, remediation and overall environmental quality analysis. The reader will get introduced with case studies in industry levels as credibility of scientific fundamentals is higher when practical solutions are shown. Eastern Baltic countries experience cover contamination problems that are mainly of historic origin due to former Soviet military and industrial policy implementation through decades. Short summaries for each case study are given and main conclusions provided in form of recommendations at the very end of the chapter.

Constructed wetland is a well-known and widely used method over the countries to improve water quality. This chapter outlines the experience of Latvia in wastewater treatment and nutrient retention in constructed wetlands. In Latvia constructed wetlands as a domestic wastewater treatment systems were initially implemented in the year 2003. Wastewater from small villages with up to 1000 inhabitants was collected and purified in subsurface flow constructed wetlands with flow regime and dimensions adapted to site-specific requirements. Constructed wetlands can provide biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) reduction efficiency up to 98% without a frequent maintenance. Two pilot-scale constructed wetlands for nutrient retention were implemented in agricultural areas and monitored since the year 2014. The monitoring results obtained during the study period showed the reduction of the average concentrations of total nitrogen and total phosphorous by 53% and 89%, respectively. Basing on the initial results presented in this chapter, constructed wetlands could gain more trust to be implemented for water quality assurance as treatment systems for the wastewater from household and agricultural sectors in Latvia.

Phosphorus (P) budgets and flows in particular regions or countries are assessed and suitable strategies discussed to identify and improve the P use efficiency in these countries. These strategies will help to reduce P losses, close the P cycles and protect vulnerable waters, such as the Baltic Sea, from further eutrophication. The P budgets and flow analyses show that in most of the Baltic Sea Region (BSR) countries P inputs exceed outputs, and a high amount of P that entered the system is retained, especially within the soils of the agricultural production sector. The continuous accumulation of P in the soil results in excessive P surpluses and increases the risk of P losses and eutrophication in the long run. Various suitable measures to help to minimize these P losses are proposed, including more stringent recycling of wastewater P (communal sewage sludges and their ashes; struvite and related precipitation products from wastewater treatment), biodegradable solid wastes (biowaste compost) and incinerated slaughter residues. However, the commercial implementation depends on the overcoming of considerable obstacles which include the development and implementation of adequate technology, the adjustment of existing and creation of new governmental regulations and promoting social acceptance of the necessary changes. Furthermore, the monitoring of P fluxes needs improvement in order to generate more consistent and comparable results. It is recommended that fluxes are modelled not only on a national but also on a regional scale in order to be able to account for the specific geographical condition of each country. Also, the P status of agricultural soils with its changes over time and some key soil characteristics need to be considered on a sub-national/regional scale to assess the actual risk of P loss via erosion/run-off/leaching from a particular area/region. Finally, P flow analyses should comprise several years to monitor long-term developments and trends in P flows.

High phosphorus (P) inputs into environmental system such as the Baltic Sea are a topic of growing concern as eutrophication is endangering this natural ecosystems in its function as a habitat for sea life. The high P inputs are caused to a significant proportion from agriculture. Farmyard manure, sewage sludge, biogas digestates or animal by-products are regularly used as organic fertilizers in agriculture. Numerous studies show that the P balance of farms, particularly those of livestock farms, is very often excessively high. P accumulates in surface layers of agricultural soils when fertilized in excess via manure application and contributes to the eutrophication of both inland and coastal water bodies favorably by surface run-off and erosion. The Baltic Sea is one of the most polluted and endangered marine ecosystems. In the current chapter different options were compiled and discussed, which have the potential to reduce the pollution of the Baltic Sea significantly in future. These different options are intertwined so that each action alone will never achieve the same efficacy in reducing P losses to water bodies as the implementation of the full range of options.

The anthropogenic land use of low lying coastal areas requires efficient protection against the sea as well as efficient drainage management to cope with storm floods and inland excess water at the same time. While dimensioning of technical solutions, such as dikes and pumping stations, is usually based on statistical analyses of historical data, such data is not available for strategic planning processes of non-stationary environments. To provide planning criteria, a scenario-based approach is introduced to be used as a basis for strategic planning of future coastal drainage concepts along the German coast. Such an approach can support integrative coastal risk management. Another challenge is the traditional perception of the efficiency of such technical installation and accordingly planning which is focusing on physical protection and safety. In contrast to well-established safety based approaches in Germany, the EU-floods directive asks for concepts assisting the management of flood risks. The floods directive demands for combining protection against, prevention of and the management of water-related risks. Since in many cases current national and state rules still rely on the safety based approach, a new perception is, therefore, necessary, taking into account the remaining risks. People must be willing to deal with residual (flood) risk related risks.

The chapter presents the results of studies on the assessment of streamflow in the rivers of the Russian part of the Baltic Sea basin, carried out by specialists from the State Hydrological Institute in different years, including assessments for the territory of the former Soviet Union. An overview of monographs and other reference publications on the country’s water resources assessment, with an emphasis on water resources estimates defined for the Baltic Sea basin. The changes in water resources and hydrological regime of the rivers occurring since the end of the 70s—the beginning of the 80s of the last century on the territory of Russia under the influence of climate change are described. Predictive estimates of possible changes in river streamflow made at the State Hydrological Institute are presented. Finally, conclusions are given regarding the prospects for solving problems in the study of water resources presented at the last VII All-Russian Hydrological Congress.

The chapter deals with the legal and methodological support for the use of water resources of the Russian Federation in the frame of development and implementation of the Schemes of integrated use and protection of water bodies (Schemes), including development standards for the permissible impact on water bodies (PIWBs), in accordance with the Water Code of Russia. The Chapter describes the regulatory and legal provision of Schemes (Water Code and Water Strategy of the Russian Federation); basin management principle, applied in Russia in the field of use and protection of water bodies; content and structure of Schemes. Schemes and PIW are listed, which were developed and approved for basins of rivers flowing into the Baltic Sea from the territory of Russia.

Report, according to the EU Floods Directive (2007/60/EC) with insurance purposes was completed in Estonia, 2016. The output of this work fulfilled the Directive targets to produce the flood maps of inland water bodies, with return periods of 2, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 200, 500 and 1000 years. The flood maps were created in ArcMap10.2.2 and ArcHydro environments, based on data of absolute maximum water levels (WLs) of Estonian state hydrological network. Created 834 flood maps based on data of 152 gauging stations: flood maps of 37 fluvial water systems and 8 standing water bodies. The flood heights with corresponding return periods were obtained from probability analysis of WLs data. Obtained results illustrate that the higher risk for the floods is expected at intersections of branching streams in Low-Estonia and upland margins of High Estonia. Before completion of the report, the existing flood maps covered only a small fraction of Estonia, i.e., territory of 17 cities only. Developed by us the flood map creation tool, is simple, allows modelling and visualising both the flood heights and corresponding overflows of watercourses over the whole country. However, the outcome depends on the availability of hydrological data and the quality of digital elevation models.

Dynamic interactions between ground- and surface water are widely known, but the role of groundwater in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems is often poorly understood and documented due to the spatiotemporal complexity. Many countries have not yet completed the assessment of groundwater dependent ecosystems (GDEs). GDEs are valuable ecosystems that depend on groundwater input and can not be considered and assessed separately. Changes in the quantity and chemical composition of groundwater recharge may result in significant and permanent damage on GDE flora and fauna. Aquifers are dynamic systems which are not subject to administrative boundaries and borders, therefore should be managed in close cooperation between neighbouring countries. According to the European Union’s Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC, a groundwater body is considered to be in “poor status” if environmentally negative pressure on groundwater causes significant damage to related GDEs. The identification of GDEs in Estonia is currently underway. A theoretical approach on how to identify, assess, and monitor the groundwater dependent terrestrial ecosystems (GDTEs) has been developed. Similar climatic and hydrogeological conditions allow to adapt the methodology to Latvia and develop it jointly further. The first step in this joint methodology is to (i) find indicators and (ii) define criteria for (i) the evaluation of quantitative and qualitative effects of groundwater bodies on GDTEs and (ii) assessment of ecosystems. Subsequently, the quantitative and qualitative effects on GDTEs using assessment schemes must be identified. In this chapter, we are presenting a methodology for GDTE identification and assessment which could be used in similar situation in other countries.

This chapter sheds light on the book’s main findings and recommendations of the chapters presented in the book. In addition, an update is made from the recent published results of research work on quality and management of water resources in Baltic Sea Countries. Additionally, a set of recommendations for future research work is pointed out to direct future research towards water resources in Baltic Sea Countries. Additionally, we added a special chapter to the conclusions section on “Estonian Wetlands and the Water Framework Directive” due to its uniqueness nature.