- Forests and Climate Change
- Ecosystem services and sustainable urban development (ENSURE)
- Multidisciplinary Baltic Sea- Research (MULTIDOM)
- Global Environmeintal Change
- Research projects
- Climate change
- Ecosystems and biodiversity
- Global environment
- Built environment
- Environmental history
- Environmental policy
- Economy and technology
- Environmental philosophy / Ethics
MULTIDOM: multidisciplinary assessment of the role of DOM in the
environmental status of the Baltic Sea
Organic matter load to the Baltic Sea has been identified as the second greatest environmental pressure both in the Bothnian Bay and in the Gulf of Finland by the HELCOM Holistic Assessment. In this program a sound and fully integrated assessment of the vulnerability of the Baltic Sea ecosystem to organic inputs in its northern sub-basins is created. Furthermore, the feasibility of management, and ultimately mitigation strategies, for the control of dissolved organic matter (DOM) loading from various major land use types is evaluated. The methods will include the assessment of the drivers and pressures in the catchment areas, the detailed evaluation of effects by organic inputs on the various ecosystem levels and a formal analysis of the use of controlling instruments.
There are three main activities and disciplines in the project: (i) DOM loading from soil, (ii) DOM loads in rivers and into Baltic Sea, and (iii) the environmental history.
- DOM loading from soil. The effect of land-use and agricultural practises on DOM quantity and quality in soil and on the quantity and quality on DOM load from soil will be studied in MTT’s leaching fields located in different soil types.
- DOM loads in rivers and into Baltic Sea. In this activity hierarchical Bayesian models are utilized in modelling the water quality in rivers providing DOM input to the Gulf of Bothnia and probabilistic models to describe the possible changes in the Gulf of Bothnia ecosystem are created.
- Environmental history. This activity will concentrate on the environmental history around the Baltic Sea region. The research approach includes the international comparative approaches and local level case studies. The main focus here is on the history of environmental policy in the Baltic Sea Region and on the comparative environmental history of the catchment areas in the Baltic Sea Region.
The research program will be led by Professor Jussi Lankoski, the water quality part will be led by Professor Harri Kuosa, the probabilistic analysis will be led by Professor Sakari Kuikka, and the environmental historyanalysis will be led by Adjunct Professor Ilmo Massa.