How can stakeholder participation improve European watershed management: the Water Framework Directive, watercourse groups and Swedish contributions to Baltic Sea eutrophication

Water Policy ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Blomqvist
Keyword(s):  
Water Framework Directive ◽  
Watershed Management ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Stakeholder Participation ◽  
Nutrient Losses ◽  
Total Flow ◽  
Baltic Region ◽  
Institutional Landscape ◽  
The Baltic

Nutrient losses from agricultural land constitute an important part of the total flow of nutrients to lakes and seas in Sweden and the Baltic region. With the Water Framework Directive, to be implemented shortly throughout Europe, emphasis is increasing on the role of stakeholder participation and decentralisation of various responsibilities from authorities to groups in the civil society. This paper investigates a Swedish case where local watercourse groups (WCGs) have formed in order to be involved more actively in the efforts to reduce nutrient losses from agricultural lands. This paper presents a qualitative analysis of the institutional landscape surrounding WCGs, goals, goal formulation and space of action.

Building capacity of the Baltic States to meet the EU Water Framework Directive through watershed demonstration projects

2003 ◽  
Vol 48 (10) ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Vicory ◽  
J. Staniskis ◽  
J. Heath ◽  
T. Davenport
Keyword(s):  
Water Framework Directive ◽  
Watershed Management ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ohio River ◽  
Ohio River Valley ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Management Planning ◽  
Baltic Countries ◽  
Management Capacity ◽  
The Baltic

The Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission (ORSANCO), in cooperation with the United States EPA, is completing it role in assisting the Baltic Countries of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia with watershed management capacity building demonstration projects under the Great Lakes/Baltic Sea Partnership Program. The Countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania view the skills gained through this program as important to their objective of complying with the European Union’s Water Framework Directive and thus facilitating accession into the European Union. The program also addressed Kaliningrad’s desire to work cooperatively with their neighboring countries concerning shared waters. Three watershed demonstration projects were designed and implemented, two of which involved joint country efforts: Parnu River (Estonia) modeling for nutrients and bacteria survey; river basin assessment and management planning for the Lielupe Basin (Latvia and Lithuania); and data base development and cooperative water quality survey and analysis for the Sesupe River (Lithuania and Kaliningrad). The benefits of the projects include enhancing the country’s technical skills and the forging of relationships, without which achieving effective watershed management will be difficult to achieve.

Italian Intrigue in the Baltic: Myth, Faith, and Politics in the Age of Baroque

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-52
Author(s):  
Aušra Baniulytė
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Social Aspects ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Baltic Region ◽  
Commercial Activity ◽  
Mary Magdalene ◽  
Counter Reformation ◽  
Baroque Era ◽  
The Baltic

Abstract This article examines the role of myth in Italian cultural politics in the Baltic region during the Baroque era. A special focus for this analysis is the legend about a “kinship” between the Florentine Pazzi family and the Lithuanian noble family of the Pacas (Polish: Pac), known in the sources of the seventeenth century as “the Pazzi in Lithuania.” This legend prevailed particularly in the second half of the Baroque period, having developed under the influence of different political, religious, and social aspects of Baroque culture. It played an important part in the Papacy’s interests in Poland-Lithuania during the Counter-Reformation and in the commercial activity of Italian merchants in the Baltic, which coincided with the expansion of the monastic orders in this region and the cult of St. Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi, to whom the Pacas family expressed their devotion.

THE ROLE OF TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS IN AGRICULTURAL OUTPUT GROWTH IN THE NMS UPON EUROPEAN UNION ACCESSION

2021 ◽  
Vol XIII (1) ◽  
pp. 85-99
Author(s):  
Ludwik Wicki
Keyword(s):  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Dominant Role ◽  
Output Growth ◽  
Political Transformation ◽  
Baltic States ◽  
Agricultural Output ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
The Baltic

It is very important to increase input productivity in agriculture. This not only enables feeding the growing population, but also reducing agricultural pressure on the environment. The aim of the study is to determine the importance of TFP in comparison to the significance of production inputs in the growth of agricultural output in new EU member states. The analysis covered 2000-2016. Data available from the USDA on agriculture of the studied countries was used. The method of Solow residuals was used in the study. It was found that, in the studied countries, agricultural output decreased after political transformation and, since 2004, a further decrease of agricultural production was observed in five out of nine countries. Only in the three Baltic states and Poland was there an increase in production. In all countries, except Poland, a decrease in production intensity was observed. The area of agricultural land in all countries except the Baltic states decreased similarly. In the analyzed period, the highest increase in factor productivity was achieved in Lithuania (72%), Estonia (57%) and Latvia (51%), while the lowest in Hungary (7%) and Poland (21%). In each of the analyzed countries, the increase in TFP resulted in either an increase in agricultural output or the decrease in agricultural output was smaller than the decrease in the amount of inputs used. Technological change plays a dominant role in achieving an increase in agricultural production and an increase in the productivity of other inputs.

New and old peripheries: Britain, the Baltic, and the Americas in the Great Divergence

2010 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 373-394 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klas Rönnbäck
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Institutional Constraints ◽  
Factor Endowment ◽  
Baltic Region ◽  
One Step ◽  
Great Divergence ◽  
Increasing Demand ◽  
The Baltic

AbstractIn his seminal bookThe Great Divergence, Kenneth Pomeranz has argued that access to inputs from the vast acreages available in the Americas was crucial for the Industrial Revolution in Britain. But could no other regions of the world have provided the inputs in demand? Recent research claims that this could have been the case. This article takes that research one step further by studying Britain’s trade with an old and important peripheral trading partner, the Baltic, contrasting this to the British trade with America. The article shows that production for export was not necessarily stagnating in the Baltic, as Pomeranz has claimed. Qualitative aspects of the factor endowment of land did not, however, enable the production of specific raw materials, such as cotton, to meet the increasing demand. Thus, the decreasing role of the Baltic ought to a large extent to be attributed to the patterns of British industrialization, and the demand it created for specific raw materials, rather than internal, institutional constraints in the Baltic region.

scholarly journals Spring fuelling by arctic Dunlins Calidris a. alpina in the southern Baltic and the potential role of a changing climate

Ornis Svecica ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (3–4) ◽  
pp. 80-92
Author(s):  
Johan Stedt ◽  
Åke Lindström
Keyword(s):  
Potential Role ◽  
Average Rate ◽  
Baltic Region ◽  
Spring Temperature ◽  
The North ◽  
Warming Climate ◽  
Breeding Grounds ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
The Baltic

In spring, Dunlins Calidris a. alpina put on substantial fuel stores in the North Sea region before a long flight to breed in northwest Russia. There are hitherto no well-described fuelling sites in the Baltic region. In May and early June in 2004–2010 we trapped more than 1000 Dunlins at Ottenby, south-east Sweden. Most birds carried substantial fuel loads already when first trapped (much more than in autumn) and, more importantly, 37 within-season re-traps increased in mass at an average rate of 1.2 g/d. This corresponds to a fuelling rate of about 2.6% of lean body mass per day, among the highest recorded for this species. Stopover times were short; only 3.5% of the birds were re-trapped and they stayed on average only 2.2 days. Since the late 1970s, increasing numbers of Dunlins stop over at successively earlier dates. This coincides with an increase in spring temperature of 1.1–2.0°C in 1977–2010. Possibly, a warming climate has facilitated and selected for a gradual shift of the final fuelling sites closer towards the breeding grounds.

scholarly journals Nitrogen and Phosphorus Fluxes from Finnish Agricultural Areas to the Baltic Sea

1995 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seppo Rekolainen ◽  
Heikki Pitkänen ◽  
Albert Bleeker ◽  
Sietske Felix
Keyword(s):  
Baltic Sea ◽  
Coastal Waters ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Nitrogen Loading ◽  
Nitrogen Fertilizers ◽  
River Channels ◽  
Nutrient Losses ◽  
The Baltic Sea ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
Agricultural Areas

Nutrient losses from small drainage basins were compared to the nutrient fluxes in small coastal rivers in order to study the representativeness of the Finnish monitoring network of small basins, especially as regards agricultural loading to the Baltic Sea. Additionally flux estimates from the period 1986-1990 were compared to those of the period 1981-1985 in order detect possible trends. The results suggest that in coastal regions with high proportions of agricultural land and with low lake percentage, the nutrient losses from agricultural areas mostly enter coastal waters with negligible retention in river channels. The net effect of the various processes in the rivers is small because most of the nutrient losses occur in spring, fall or early winter in connection with high water flows and current velocities, short residence times of water and low intensities of biogeochemical processes. Nitrogen losses from agriculture has probably increased during the 1980s due to increased winter flows and increased use of nitrogen fertilizers. The results indicate that nitrogen loading of the southern and south-western coastal waters of Finland has increased as well.

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