News and Blog

The SEABASED Project is soon approaching its end and our final outputs are already on the way. In this blog post Project Manager Miina Mäki from the John Nurminen Foundation sums up the project’s highlights.

For two seasons, 2019 and 2020, we have been irrigating fields in Åland with nutrient rich brackish water from two strongly eutrophicated bays in the SEABASED project. So how did it go? Did it work?

The population of pike has decreased radically in recent decades, which has created an imbalance in the coastal ecosystems in the Baltic Sea. In the SEABASED-project, we have worked to investigate if there were suitable conditions in our selected pilot areas in Östergötland to establish “pike factories”. Administrator Kenneth Winroth from the County Administrative Board of Östergötland reveals what we have learned about planning and constructing a pike factory.

Finding a suitable and successful method to catch a fish that has not been commercially fished for a century has been full of trials and errors. With relentless work and not giving up on the first hurdle, the SEABASED project has found a suitable method and fishing gear that should work with this tiny yet ecologically significant fish. Rosita Broström from the Åland Fish Farmers’ Association writes more about the process of trying, failing and ultimately succeeding.

One of the main objectives of the SEABASED project is to produce practical guidelines on sea-based measures. In addition to the results and experiences from project pilots, the guidelines will also be based on the views of scientists and stakeholders. Read more in the blog post written by Project Manager Eeva Puustjärvi.

When you ask people to name Baltic fish species, they usually list perch, pike, roach, cod, salmon and so on. Only a few can name stickleback. Many people around the Baltic Sea have never even heard about stickleback, although chances are that they have seen it in shallow nearshore waters, since it is one of the commonly sighted fishes. In this blog post we dive in to hear about the secret life of stickleback, with Ulf Bergström, the marine ecologist from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU).

In this blog post, Annica Brink, project coordinator from The Government of Åland, leads us to the world of compensation and explains what it has to do with the SEABASED project.

A field trial of a newly developed phosphorus sorbent is ongoing in Djuröfladen, a small semi-enclosed bay in the Stockholm archipelago (Värmdö municipality). The pilot trials are led by Stockholm University and its contractors. Environmental consultant Nils Ekeroth describes the details of the on-going trial.

As one of the measures in the SEABASED project to help control eutrophication, a pike factory, i.e., an artificial small-scale wetland suitable as a breeding area for pike, will be created in the Linköping area in Sweden. Marine biologist Miina Mäki, the Project Manager for the SEABASED project, describes how the pike factories work and why they are important.

In one of the SEABASED pilots nutrient-rich bottom waters are removed from two eutrophied semi-closed, coastal bays and the possibility of recycling nutrients by utilizing the water for irrigation on fields is tested. Annica Brink, a project coordinator from The Government of Åland, reveals the first results from two irrigated fields.

Christian Roman is a master’s student studying environmental science at Stockholm University. He has worked with Cementa AB for the last 6 months and shares his experiences on working with the sorbent used in SEABASED pilots.

When in Gotland, it is hard not to talk about limestone and the local Cementa factory. The factory was originally built 100 years ago in 1919 and now employs around 230 in Slite. The SEABASED project team and steering group visited the factory to learn more not only about the making of Cementa’s products but also about the sorbent, that is used in our pilot, which is treated in this factory. This sorbent is produced from marl and is used to bind phosphorus to the sediment in pilot sites in Sweden and Finland.

In the end of March, the Government of Åland and the County Administrative Board of Östergötland headed for Västervik, Sweden, or more specifically, Gamleby. Besides being the second largest urban area in Västervik Municipality, Gamleby is also the location for an exciting project. Annica Brink, a project coordinator in the Government of Åland, writes how brackish waters have been used to irrigate agricultural fields in Sweden.

Have you ever wondered how pilot sites are chosen in field experiments? Irma Puttonen, project planner from the Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment for Southwest Finland, reveals her secrets on how the sites in the sediment removal pilot study have been chosen. 

Our initial idea for the SEABASED project was to tackle the challenges related to internal nutrient loading in the Baltic Sea. We aimed at creating a project that in the end would provide, also some practical solutions for cutting down the eutrophication of the sea. However, when preparing the project, we found out that actually very little coherent information exists about the so call sea-based measures, and a bunch of novel and innovative ideas around them. Based on discussions with a number of stakeholders, presenting very different viewpoints and perspective, we have given our best shot to identify the most potential ideas to pilot and to learn more. What this will amount to, we now believe, is building up a fruitful dialogue between a number of stakeholders over the coming 30 months and, hopefully, finding sustainable solutions for helping the sea.

Written by Rosita Broström, Åland Fish Farmers’ Association

I was around six or seven years old and attended the summer swimming school, a common thing to do for kids here in the Åland Islands. This year it was held at Kaldersfjärden bay in Jomala municipality. We played, learned how to swim and dive, and jumped into the water from the floating raft.