Swedish researchers suspect Baltic Sea could be in worse shape than thought

Present reductions in emissions seen as inadequate to improve water quality

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According to a report by Sweden’s Environmental Advisory Council, the Baltic Sea may be in worse shape than previously thought. According to a report commissioned by the Swedish government, the Baltic might need more extensive cuts in emissions than current plans call for.
      The council suspects that the Baltic Sea’s ecosystem could be locked in a self-perpetuating cycle of pollution, in which the poor state of the sea accelerates the eutrophication process on its own. In that mechanism, phosphorous is released from the the bottom of the sea, which suffers from a lack of oxygen. This accelerates the growth of blue-green algae on the surface, which in turn absorb nitrogen from the air, which leads to further oxygen depletion.
      The researchers say that the process is analogous to that of desertification on land.
     
The theory would explain why there has been no improvement in the condition of the open sea in the Baltic, even though emissions of phosphorous and nitrogen from land have decreased.
      The Environmental Advisory Council says that getting out of the cycle would probably require much deeper cuts in emissions than present rules require.
      The experts say that Sweden could reduce its nutrient emissions to the level they were in 1940 in 15 years, but that this alone would probably not be enough to improve the state of the sea.
      They urge the Swedish government to work at the highest possible political level to get other Baltic Sea countries to sharply reduce their emissions.
      According to Heikki Pitkänen, head researcher of the Finnish Environment Institute’s research programme for the protection of the Baltic Sea, the Swedish report "shows in a very concrete manner, that we have gone beyond a point of easy return".


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Baltic Sea increasingly murky - unique study examines data over a century (13.12.2004)
  Blue-green algae hits shores in east of Gulf of Finland (6.8.2004)
  Experts fear bad blue-green algae situation in Gulf of Finland this summer (10.5.2004)
  Gulf of Finland still in bad shape (23.8.2004)

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