Building a Common Approach to Underwater Cultural Landscapes in the Baltic Sea
The UCL-Baltic project concludes in October 2026 after 18 months of collaboration between heritage authorities from Estonia, Åland and Latvia. Together, they have worked to address a challenge that extends across national borders: how to better identify, assess and manage underwater cultural landscapes in the Baltic Sea. Led by the Estonian National Heritage Board, the project brought together the Government of Åland and the National Heritage Board of Latvia to develop a practical methodology for the preservation and sustainable management of underwater cultural heritage. While shipwrecks often receive the most public attention, underwater cultural landscapes also include submerged settlements, historic harbours, navigational routes and other traces of human activity that together tell a broader story about the past. The project’s main result is a jointly developed methodology that helps heritage professionals move beyond the management of individual archaeological sites and instead consider the wider relationships between cultural remains, natural features and historical activity areas beneath the sea.
According to Maili Roio of the Estonian National Heritage Board and Riikka Tevali of the Government of Åland, this broader landscape perspective represents the project’s most significant achievement: “Underwater heritage is often managed mainly as separate archaeological sites or objects, while the wider relationships between wrecks, submerged landscapes, natural formations, historical routes and present-day uses may remain insufficiently recognised,” they explain.
The methodology developed through UCL-Baltic is designed to make these relationships more visible and easier to integrate into planning and heritage management. It includes a common assessment form and a transparent scoring framework that can be applied across different national contexts while remaining adaptable to local legislation and administrative systems.
A shared Baltic perspective
One of the project’s central ideas was that underwater cultural heritage does not stop at national borders. Throughout history, maritime trade, navigation, warfare and the use of marine resources connected communities around the Baltic Sea. The traces of those activities remain visible underwater today. For that reason, the partners saw clear value in developing a methodology that could be tested in different geographical, environmental and administrative contexts.
The project revealed notable differences between the participating regions. Geological conditions vary considerably between Estonia, Latvia and Åland, and each country manages cultural heritage within its own legal framework. Yet the test areas also displayed many similarities.
Roio and Tevali note that despite environmental differences, the pilot areas contained comparable layers of human activity and historical events accumulated over centuries. These historical layers provided a common basis for understanding and assessing underwater cultural landscapes throughout the region. Perhaps more importantly, the testing demonstrated that a common framework could be applied successfully across very different underwater environments without compromising national management practices.
Learning from each other
Although the partners were already familiar with one another through existing Baltic heritage networks, the project offered an opportunity to translate professional dialogue into practical cooperation. For Latvia, the experience was particularly valuable. Kaspars Markus Molls from the National Heritage Board of Latvia highlights that the project provided important opportunities for learning, networking and capacity building: “The project was extremely beneficial to us because Latvia has hardly any maritime cultural heritage experts, so there is a great deal that we did not know. Cross-border cooperation provided valuable insights and best practices that can be applied not only to the project, but also to the management of underwater cultural heritage in general.”
The cooperation also offered insight into how different governance structures and heritage management systems operate. According to Molls, working with Åland was especially interesting because of its unique legal status and administrative framework. The project gave Latvian experts a broader understanding of how underwater cultural heritage can be managed under different institutional settings.
The exchange of ideas also led to practical inspiration. Molls points out that Latvia has begun working more closely with maritime spatial planning, an area where Estonian colleagues already possessed significant experience. This has helped increase the visibility of underwater cultural heritage issues within wider planning processes and created new opportunities for future cooperation.
A New Land-Sea Perspective on Cultural Heritage
One of the most interesting outcomes of the project was the recognition of the connections between heritage on land and heritage beneath the sea. The Granhamn case study emerged as a particularly influential example during the project. According to Roio and Tevali, representing Estonian and Åland project partners, the case demonstrated how evidence of a single historical event or activity can survive in multiple locations, from inland archaeological remains to coastal sites and underwater features.
Changes in shorelines over time further complicate these relationships, making it difficult to understand individual sites without considering their wider landscape context. The experience encouraged project partners to strengthen what they describe as a “land-sea perspective” in future heritage assessments.
Rather than viewing terrestrial and underwater heritage as separate categories, the project highlighted the importance of analysing historical shorelines, landing places, routes, wreck sites and coastal settlements together whenever evidence indicates they form parts of the same historical landscape. This approach may also improve future spatial planning by making historical relationships more visible across different planning systems and heritage registers.
Finding the balance between consistency and flexibility
Developing a methodology suitable for multiple countries was not without its challenges. Roio and Tevali explain further that the most significant challenge was striking the right balance between standardisation and flexibility.
The methodology needed to be rigorous enough to produce comparable assessments while remaining adaptable to different datasets, landscapes, legislation and management needs. Another challenge was avoiding unnecessary complexity. Underwater cultural landscapes involve archaeological, historical, geological and environmental dimensions. Bringing all these perspectives together in a way that remains practical for heritage authorities, planners and specialists required extensive testing and refinement. The pilot work carried out during the project proved essential in simplifying the framework, clarifying assessment criteria and distinguishing between baseline assessments and evaluations linked to specific development plans or activities.
For Latvia, meanwhile, a different challenge stood out. Molls notes that balancing project work with everyday responsibilities was sometimes difficult, particularly because this was the organisation’s first experience of implementing a project under the programme. Nevertheless, he describes the outcome as highly successful and believes the effort was well worth it.
Looking beyond the project
Although UCL-Baltic formally concludes in October 2026, the partners expect its results to continue generating value long after the project closes. In Latvia, the methodology will be presented to the Maritime Spatial Planning Coordination Group, with proposals for integrating its principles into national maritime planning processes. The results are also expected to support future underwater surveys and assessments.
The Estonian National Heritage Board and the Government of Åland likewise see future potential in the methodology. Because it was developed and tested across multiple jurisdictions, it offers a stronger foundation than a nationally developed framework alone. The partners believe it can help heritage authorities better recognise, assess and manage underwater cultural landscapes that form part of a shared Baltic Sea history. The project’s steering group also played an important role in ensuring that the methodology remained relevant beyond the partnership itself. According to the project representatives, the group’s expert input strengthened the work throughout the project and demonstrated that interest in the methodology extends far beyond the participating organisations.
As the project concludes, the partners share a common view: preserving underwater cultural heritage requires collaboration that matches the interconnected history of the Baltic Sea itself. By developing a shared approach while respecting national differences, UCL-Baltic has taken an important step towards making those underwater stories more visible, better understood and more effectively protected for future generations.
Text: Jenny Jonstoij, national contact point Åland 2026.10.12
