Experts of Baltic and Black Seas Meet for the First Time to Discuss

Jesper H. Andersen, Denmark, presenting the HELCOM eutrophication assessment tool HEAT.

 Eutrophication

HELCOM monitoring experts from the Baltic Sea region met on 6-7 September 2011 in Istanbul for a workshop with Black Sea Commission specialists. This first encounter of its kind aimed to exchange knowledge on monitoring the causes and effects of eutrophication between the regions. The specialists represent two inter-governmental sister organizations, HELCOM and the Black Sea Commission, both working to protect marine environments. The workshop was organized as a part of an EU-funded project - ‘Baltic2Black’ - between the HELCOM and Black Sea Commission Secretariats.

 

All Problems Not Shared

In his presentation, Professor Temel Oguz gave an overview of the eutrophication status of the Black Sea. The sea suffers from over-nourishment by nutrients, nitrogen and phosphorus, like the Baltic Sea, although the problem does not seem to have reached a similar scale as in the Baltic. The problem also seems to be manifested in a different way in the two seas. The food web of the Black Sea has undergone drastic changes during the recent decennia – the effects of eutrophication are more complex and there is a different way of channeling the energy to secondary producers.

While the Black Sea is much deeper than the Baltic, both are closed sea areas with only narrow connections to more oceanic environments; as a result, nutrient pollution is prone to remain locked for long periods of time thus causing eutrophication.

Towards Black Sea Action Plan

Experts in the Black Sea region are especially interested in finding ways to cooperate on harmonized coherent evaluation methods of eutrophication and nutrient loads covering an entire sea region. Most interest focused on the nutrient reduction scheme of the HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan and the steps needed to create a similar scheme for the Black Sea. To this aim, Bo Gustafsson, Managing Director of the Baltic Nest Institute (BNI), presented the key principles of the nutrient load reduction scheme of the HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan while Alexander Sokolov, a BNI expert, demonstrated the on-line decision support tool NEST.  

As a result of the discussions, it was proposed to arrange another expert workshop between the regions. The topics would cover planning the steps needed to create a nutrient reduction scheme for the Black Sea as well as discussing ecosystem modeling needs for the region.

Longer-Term Cooperation

Overall, the key proposal from the workshop was to set up longer-term scientific collaboration between the two regions. The realm of the project ‘Baltic2Black’ could serve as a starting point for such cooperation and should continue by organizing scientific workshops that would deal not only with the nutrient reduction scheme and ecosystem modeling, but also with creating a roadmap for the regional assessment of eutrophication and the development of common guidelines for quantifying nutrient loads into the Black Sea.

 

The Baltic Sea specialists have 30 years of experience dating back to the late 1970s, when the Baltic Sea coastal countries started to jointly monitor and assess the eutrophication of the marine environment in a coordinated manner. HELCOM’s most recent assessment of the eutrophication status of the Baltic Sea was carried out during 2001–2006 and revealed that as many as 176 of the 189 assessed areas suffered from eutrophication. The control of nutrient loads from land to sea, however, has improved, resulting in phosphorus loads being halved since the 1970s due to enhanced waste water treatment, an integral part of the Helsinki Commission Baltic Sea Action Plan.

About the Baltic2Black Project:

The objective of the EU-funded project ‘Environmental monitoring of the Black Sea with focus on nutrient pollution’ (2011-2013), or ‘Baltic2Black’, is to promote the protection of the marine environment. This will be carried out by improving environmental monitoring and enhancing the transfer of knowledge and good practices from HELCOM to the Black Sea Commission, mainly on monitoring and assessing eutrophication.

HELCOM monitoring experts from the Baltic Sea region met on 6-7 September 2011 in Istanbul for a workshop with Black Sea Commission specialists to share experiences on how to monitor and assess nutrient loading and the effects of eutrophication. This first encounter of its kind aimed to exchange knowledge on monitoring the causes and effects of eutrophication between the regions. The specialists represent two inter-governmental sister organizations, HELCOM and the Black Sea Commission, both working to protect marine environments. The workshop was organized as a part of an EU-funded project - ‘Baltic2Black’ - between the HELCOM and Black Sea Commission Secretariats.