WSSP helps to protect the Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is one of the world’s most sensitive and polluted seas. About half of the nutrient load in the Baltic Sea comes from diffuse pollution, which accumulates from urban areas, agriculture, and forestry. The WSSP project promotes a practical and resource-wise Watershed Safety Plan (WSSP) operational model that enables municipalities, water utilities and other relevant actors to reduce the amount of diffuse pollution from reaching the Baltic Sea.
Diffuse pollution can contain harmful nutrient inflows, hazardous substances, and pathogens. Whereas point pollution sources are often easy to identify and address, diffuse pollution is less obvious and therefore harder to identify and mitigate. The WSSP project’s goal is to address this challenge and to create a generally applicable watershed-based water management model that improves water quality and residents’ well-being in the central Baltic Sea region.
To ensure a generally applicable model, the WSSP operational model will be piloted in densely built areas as well as sparsely populated agricultural and forestry areas in Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Sweden. Each pilot area is surveyed in detail with modern technologies such as Geological Information System (GIS) mapping tools and water monitoring methods to identify risk areas. Sustainable water protection activities are then targeted and implemented at these risk areas to reduce diffuse pollution resource-wisely and effectively.
Nine partners collaborating with target groups
The WSSP project involves nine partners from Finland, Sweden, Estonia, and Latvia. To ensure that the WSSP operational model will serve its end users in the best possible way, partners invite target groups from each partner country to co-develop the model.
Main target groups are municipalities and water utilities responsible for stormwater management. Their valuable expertise will be utilized through workshops, among others, where they can offer feedback and development ideas. New organisations are welcome to join the collaboration throughout the project.
Risk factors were explored in the first workshops
During the first six months of the project, partners have identified and invited potential target groups to participate in the project. To kickstart the collaboration, partners organized the first co-development workshops in each partner country.
In the WSSP operational model, mapping of the diffuse pollution risk areas is based on specific risk factors. They are divided into biological, physical, and factors caused by human activities, such as typical nutrient load and the possibility of implementing water protection measures. In the first workshops, partners and target groups discussed what are the relevant risk factors and their risk values in different land use areas. For example, they agreed that the risk of nutrient load is higher in agricultural areas with continuous soil cultivation than in forest areas.
The outcome of the four workshops in different countries was a variety of interesting observations and remarks regarding the risk factors. The results highlight the challenge of creating a model that is simple and easy to use but still reliable. Luckily the WSSP project is ready to take up this challenge.
Next steps
Currently, partners are finalising the list of risk factors together by utilizing the results from the workshops. After this, they will create risk maps of the pilot areas to reveal the most significant diffuse pollution areas. Based on the risk assessment, partners will start planning suitable water protection measures. Related to this, partners will organize second workshops for target groups in spring 2025.
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