Agriculture is the worst contributor to eutrophication of Finnish waters

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On Thursday, the government reached a decision on a comprehensive water management plan for the period from 2010 to 2015 that will cover all of Mainland Finland.
      The resolution is that further actions are needed in all sectors, and particularly in agriculture.
      At the moment, most of Finland’s inland waters are in excellent or good ecological condition.
      However, there are problems mainly with rivers and coastal waterways. Some 60% of the surface area of the coastal waters and around 40% of the river lengths are only in satisfactory, below-average, or poor condition.
     
”Finland is a country with very large surface and ground waters. It is an extremely important national strength and wealth for us”, said Minister of Environment Paula Lehtomäki (Centre), while presenting the programme at a press conference on Thursday.
      Lehtomäki reminded the audience of the fact that when it comes to water pollution, we are perhaps too inclined to speak about the condition of the Baltic Sea. We do have other waters, too.
      The goal of the government is that by 2015 the waters in more than 90% of the Finnish lakes and in around 70% of the rivers would be in good condition. The coastal waters should be in good condition by 2027.
     
In order that the goals are achieved, the contamination of waters will have to be prevented, while the condition of problem waters will have to be improved.
      Today, a total of approximately EUR 1.5 billion per year is used for water pollution control. That makes aboout EUR 275 per inhabitant every year.
      The government estimates that another EUR 235 million will have to be allocated annually to necessary supplementry measures.
      The sum is around EUR 44 per capita.
     
Urban areas are not the biggest problem.
      The waste waters of nearly all Finnish population centres have been treated in water purification plants already since the mid-1980s.
      However, around one million Finns are living in properties which have not been connected to any public sewage systems.
      The most significant new measures are related to the expansion of the sewer networks, involving some 90,000 buildings.
      The individual wastewater solutions for properties, as required by the Finnish Waste Act, cover 230,000 permanently inhabited properties and some 140,000 buildings used as holiday homes.
     
The underlying problem is agriculture. As a result of fertilization, nutrients run off to waterways for example in the winter when the fields are not covered by vegetation.
      Even though the use of fertilizers is today considerably lower than it was for example ten years ago, it is important to reduce the nutrient load still further.
      However, it will not improve the situation rapidly, as following the previous fertilization, the soil contains large amounts of nutrients which are bound to accelerate eutrophication if they run off to waterways.
      From the agricultural point of view, it is not a minor issue. About two-thirds of the present fields will need some sort of water protection measures to control the nutrient load caused by agriculture.
     
Minister of the Environment Lehtomäki estimates that if all measures recorded in the recently published water management programme were carried out, it would cost Finnish farmers approximately EUR 100 million.
      However, the entire sum is not likely to be funded from the farmers’ purse, as not every measure will be carried out, while the government will no doubt come up with a way to compensate the farmers for the costs.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Pollution worst in coastal waters, lakes, and rivers of Southern Finland (17.6.2008)

Links:
  Eutrophication (Wikipedia)

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