| Abstract |
Project Title: Development of a mechanistic model of the Gulf
of Riga ecosystem in support of efficient national policy to ensure the
protection of the Baltic Sea and to promote the sustainable use of its
ecosystem
Baltic sea, which is
one of the world’s most endangered marine areas, is mainly endangered by
eutrophication, loss of biodiversity and marine transport. Therefore, states
around Baltic sea agreed to implement environment protection measures in frame
of international agreements, such as HELCOM BSAP, and EU directives.
While planning measures
and their costs it is imperative to increase quality and certainty of
environmental information as well as planning instrument, since analysis of
economical benefits done for this project indicates that annual environmental
investment and maintenance costs differ by 50 million LVL if only two available
denitrification values are used as border conditions.
Currently Latvia does not have instrument suitable for calculation of
acceptable loads. Therefore this project proposes elaboration of main component
of planning instrument - mechanistic (functional) biogeochemical model of the
Gulf of Riga, as well as proposes to increase certainty of processes
controlling critical parameters. The elaboration of proposed model will include
significant reworking of currently existing biogeochemical model sediment
component, integration of measurement values obtained in frame of this project,
elaboration of high resolution water exchange physical model, as well as fish
component (herring) will be incorporated in biological module, what will allow
to use model also in fish catch planning. The estimated economical benefit of
this model is between 13 and 40 millions LVL annually.
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