Lectures by senior environmental assessment specialists

In the autumn of 2020, SLU´s vice-chancellor appointed our first senior environmental assessment specialists.

Since then, a new academic tradition has started, where SLU's newly appointed specialists share their expert knowledge to promote a better environment through open lectures.

In the latest webcast, Mattias Lundblad shared insights into the work on environmental monitoring of forests and land for international climate reporting.

• You´ll find the latest webcast here.

Below, can learn more about the latest lecturers' individual special areas in lecture summaries.

Mattias Lundblad: Environmental monitoring of forests and soil for international commitments related to climate change

Lecturer: Mattias Lundblad, researcher at the Department of Soil and Environment, SLU.

Moderator: Anna Gårdmark, Professor at the Department of Aquatic Resources, SLU.

Recording of Mattias Lundblad's lecture.

Summary

SLU's inventory of greenhouse gases plays an important role when following up on climate strategies and agreements. Long-term environmental monitoring is essential to meet national environmental goals and international reporting requirements. Continuous development of methods through research is needed to capture society's constantly changing needs and demands. In his lecture, Mattias Lundblad talks about the work behind the climate reporting for land use and forests and the future development of the reporting.

SLU compiles Sweden's reporting of emissions and removals of greenhouse gases from land use and forestry (LULUCF sector) to the UN Climate Convention (UNFCCC) and the EU.

The reporting is used to follow up on the development of emissions and removals from land use and forestry against the commitments to reduce emissions that the countries have undertaken under the UN's global Paris Agreement. The distribution of the EU's commitment within the Paris Agreement and the reporting requirements for EU member states are regulated in a number of EU regulations.

The reporting of the LULUCF sector includes changes in soil and forest carbon stocks and emissions of other greenhouse gases from all cultivated land in Sweden, corresponding to 74 percent of the Swedish land and freshwater area. The most important data for calculating emissions and removals comes from SLU's environmental monitoring of forests and soil (The National Forest Inventory, the Swedish Forest Soil Inventory and the Soil and crop inventory).

Forests and soil naturally absorb and emit greenhouse gases, such as when carbon dioxide is absorbed in connection with photosynthesis and is released during natural decomposition or when forests are felled. In general, Swedish forests and soil absorb more carbon from the atmosphere than is released. This means that the carbon stock increases in forests and land, a net uptake or a net removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The latest report shows that the largest net uptake of carbon occurs in living tree biomass and mineral soil on forest land, but also through the storage of carbon in long-lived wood products. The largest net release of carbon into the atmosphere comes from drained peatland on forest land or agricultural land. Emissions also occur when forest and agricultural land are exploited, and the carbon bound in biomass and soil is released.

The documents from the National Forest Inventory and the Swedish Forest Soil Inventory have been used together with various datasets with a spatial resolution to produce maps of carbon stocks and changes in carbon stocks. Such data can be useful for calculating the effect on the carbon balance of exploitation or when wanting to identify areas for measures to preserve or increase carbon stocks.

Holger Dettki 2022: Efficient e-infrastructure key in biologging and big data analyses of wild animals

Lecturer: Holger Dettki, Researcher at the SLU Swedish Species Information Centre.

Lecturer: Holger Dettki, Researcher at the SLU Swedish Species Information Centre.

Moderator: Pernilla Christensen, Environmental monitoring and assessment specialist at the Department of Forest Resource Management, SLU.

Recording of Holger Dettki's lecture.

Summary

Remote monitoring of animals with sensors and telemetry – usually called biologging – is about putting different types of sensors on animals to study their behaviour or physiology from a distance. The area has developed rapidly as sensors have been able to shrink in size and weight, become significantly cheaper, and data transfer technology has improved. This means that the amount of data generated increases exponentially, which places demands on data management and, at the same time, provides opportunities for large-scale data analysis of so-called big data.

A prerequisite for using this data is that it is accessible and usable. However, local database management and integration of these diversified datasets can prove challenging and hamper the effectiveness of environmental analyses. Efficient and standardized data management and sharing of biologging data is therefore a strict requirement. There is an urgent need for agreements on data standards, new solutions and communication between existing international data management and data sharing systems.

Biologging data also provides a major basis for biodiversity research. Therefore, the link between biologging infrastructures and international biodiversity infrastructures such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is also needed.

In the lecture, Holger Dettki will outline requirements, problems, potential pitfalls and possible solutions for a successful e-infrastructure for biologging for the next decade in animal ecology, based on the e-infrastructure Wireless Remote Animal Monitoring (WRAM) at SLU. He will describe how this infrastructure connects its data with the Swedish Biodiversity Data Infrastructure (SBDI), where SLU is an important partner.

Stefan Palm: DNA as a tool for sustainable management and conservation of fish populations

Lecturer: Stefan Palm, Researcher at the Department of Aquatic Resources, SLU.

Moderator: Anna Gårdmark, Professor at the Department of Aquatic Resources, SLU.

Recording of Stefan Palm's lecture.

Summary

Population genetic analyses of fish and shellfish are becoming an increasingly established method within SLU's Environmental monitoring and assessment, with great future potential. DNA variation can, for example, show how species are divided into genetically distinct populations, which constitutes important basic knowledge for conservation and sustainable resource management. It is also possible to study how human activities, such as fish releases, affect intraspecific genetic variation.

Stefan Palm, senior environmental analysis specialist at SLU, begins with a short subject introduction, followed by some examples from his work with genetic analyses linked to environmental and aquatic resource monitoring. The presentation ends with a look into the future.

Stefan Larsson: How many fish are in the sea? Stock analysis of coastal fish for sustainable management

Lecturer: Stefan Larsson, Environmental Assessment Specialist at the Department of Aquatic Resources, SLU.

Moderator: Anna Gårdmark, Professor at the Department of Aquatic Resources, SLU.

Recording of Stefan Larsson's lecture.

Summary

To investigate the status of coastal fish stocks, SLU collects data via annual test fishing, from commercial and recreational fishing and from various research projects. Collected data is analysed to increase our knowledge on the role of fish in the ecosystem and on how humans and the environment affect coastal fish stocks. This knowledge forms the basis for SLU’s advice to authorities on how fish stocks can be sustainably used and managed.

Stefan Larsson, senior environmental analysis specialist at SLU, will, in his lecture, give both forward and backward views on the status of coastal fish. This, among other things, is demonstrated through examples from the challenging task of pike monitoring.

Jonas Fridman: Official statistics from the Swedish National Forest Inventory at SLU – a common denominator in the polarised debate about forests?

Lecturer: Jonas Fridman, Research Group Leader at the Department of Forest Resource Management, SLU.

Moderator: Hans Petersson, Researcher at the Department of Forest Resource Management, SLU.

Recording of Jonas Fridman's lecture.

Summary

Raw materials from the forest have always been and still are important resources for human welfare. As early as 1558, King Gustav Vasa stipulated in a decree that no one except the King was allowed to cut, fell, break or bark either oak or beech, and in 1647, a forest ordinance was issued, which is considered Sweden's first forest legislation, regulating how Sweden's forests must be used and managed. The most important task of the forest during this time is, without a doubt, to ensure a long-term production of raw materials for wood products, oak and beech acorns, charcoal, tar and potash. The craving for forest raw materials and the pressure on the forest are now increasing sharply, and with the abolition of English import taxes on wood in 1866, there was a major expansion of sawmills, especially in Norrland. Concerns that the raw material will not be enough are great, and to get a basis for whether there is a shortage or not, and information about the forest state, the first National Forest Inventory (RT) started in 1923. The results were published in 1932 (SOU 1932: 26).

From this time until the beginning of the 1990s, RT focused on providing a basis for the forest's role as a raw material supplier to the forest industry. With the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio in 1992 and the drafting of the new Forest Act, where environmental and production goals must weigh equally, an expansion of RT was initiated to also be able to follow the development of the environmental condition. Most important in this respect is the introduction of an inventory of all dead wood, an inventory within formally protected areas, a description of multi-layer forests and a more detailed species list for the tree species.

Already when the national environmental objectives system was adopted by the Swedish Parliament in 1999, RT provided data for three indicators within the environmental quality objective “Living forests”; the area of ​​older deciduous forest, the area of ​​old forest and the amount of hard dead wood. In the climate context, the change in the forest's carbon content in the timber stock of living and dead trees is an important component in the reporting to the Climate Convention and the Kyoto Protocol, which is based on data from RT.

Today's debate about the forest, both regarding the environmental condition and the role of the forest for the climate, has become strongly polarized in many ways. Representatives of NGO´s, government agencies, some politicians and researchers believe that the forest's environmental condition is poor and deteriorates with an endangered biodiversity, and advocate increased area protection and changed forestry methods.  Representatives of the forest industry, the forest owners' association, other politicians and researchers believe instead that the environmental condition is not so bad, has improved in recent years and that active forestry is better for the climate than letting the forest be used only as a carbon stock.

Data from RT and the climate reporting are widely used in the debate, but interpreted in different ways and different references are used when describing changes or differences. In summary, data from RT are important in the polarised debate, but as a product of official statistics, RT cannot influence which references debaters use.

Lars Sonesten: Reduced eutrophication requires knowledge from source to sea

Lecturer: Lars Sonesten, Researcher at the Department of Aquatic Sciences and Assessment, SLU.

Moderator: Åsa Berggren, Professor at the Department of Ecology, SLU.

Recording of Lars Sonesten's lecture.

Summary

The media often report on various environmental problems in our coastal and marine areas. Actually, this is nothing new. In the 1960s and 70s, eutrophication was a fact, but then in our lakes. What has happened now is that the problems have moved further away from us, out to the sea.

SLU monitors the environmental condition of Sweden's lakes and watercourses, which we have been doing since the mid-1960s. What is in our lakes and watercourses will sooner or later end up in the Sea, and within the Swedish environmental monitoring have estimated the load of, for example, nutrients and metals into the sea for more than 50 years. Our valuable long-time series are used for Sweden to be able to monitor the development of the national environmental goals, but also for us to be able to report internationally on our loads to the oceans. You can easily access the data collected within the national data hosting for lakes and watercourses via the SLU data portal Miljödata-MVM.

SLU participates in the international organizations HELCOM (for the Baltic Sea) and OSPAR (for the Northeast Atlantic). Here we work together with other coastal states to improve the condition of our common seas. Important work tools are partly the result of SLU's environmental monitoring, but also our knowledge of the sources of this load.

In HELCOM, the countries have together decided on input ceilings ​​for how much nutrients the various parts of the Baltic Sea can handle, if we want an acceptable water quality. This is within the so-called Baltic Sea Action Plan. In order to monitor the trends and whether the countries achieve the goals, annual reports are made on how much nutrients have reached the sea. Within the framework of OSPAR, a corresponding work is underway to produce input ceilings.

Agriculture and forestry are important sources for the transport of nutrients from land to the sea. Agriculture in particular accounts for a large part of the human-caused nutrient loss in southern Sweden. It is important to reduce nutrient losses and, by extension, eutrophication of the oceans, and SLU has expertise in effective measures. We are happy to share that knowledge both domestically and internationally.

Within environmental monitoring, there is a constant development through SLU's research. Here, it is important to make progress, but not too fast, to ensure that our long-time series continue to be comparable over time. Regarding the input of various environmental pollutants into our sea areas, we see a development potential. SLU's data have for a long time included metals, but we still lack continuous monitoring of organic pollutants, pharmaceutical and veterinary residues, plastic particles and other littering.

Our sea areas are large and slow-reacting ecosystems where long-term and persistent work is important. A fun part of this work is to constantly educate and enthuse our students, because it is above all for them and their children that we try to reduce the human impact on the sea, so that they may experience a sea with good water quality.

Johan Dannewitz: Managing the salmon stocks of the Baltic Sea - How hard can it be?

Lecturer: Johan Dannewitz, Researcher at the Department of Aquatic Resources, SLU.

Moderator: Richard Johnson, Professor at the Department of Aquatic Sciences and Assessment, SLU.

Recording of Johan Dannewitz's lecture.

Summary

In the Baltic Sea, there are 27 rivers with wild, self-reproducing salmon populations. Many of these were threatened during the 1980s and 90s, but most populations have recovered in the last 20 years. Reduced fishing in the sea, river restorations and reduced mortality in the salmon disease M74 are factors that have contributed to the recovery. Today, salmon populations in the Gulf of Bothnia have generally good status, and several have achieved the management objectives set up within the EU's common fisheries policy. In the southern Baltic Sea, however, there are several small river populations with low status, and those have not responded positively to previous reductions in exploitation levels.

SLU coordinates the data collection on Swedish salmon populations in the Baltic Sea, and participates in the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea's (ICES) working group, which makes annual status evaluations and forecasts of the future development of salmon populations. These analyses form the basis for ICES advice to the EU ahead of the annual quota negotiations. SLU also has an important advisory function for national management authorities, for example, the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management, responsible for the management of salmon fisheries in Sweden. Salmon populations are monitored by electrofishing in rivers and counting of out-migrating young salmon (smolts) and returning adult salmon in river mouths. In addition, recreational catches are estimated, and official catch statistics from commercial fisheries are compiled. All this information is then used as input data in the analyses carried out within ICES.

The fact that the Baltic salmon consists of many genetically distinct populations with varying status is a challenge for management. The species is exploited both in the sea, along the coasts and in rivers. Fishing takes place sequentially; first in sea fisheries in the southern Baltic Sea, then during the spawning migrations along the coasts and finally in river fisheries. The sea and coastal fisheries mainly target mixed stocks. Management on the international level is based on an EU quota, divided between member states according to a politically decided distribution key. Under current conditions with considerable variation in population status, this rather blunt management system is associated with difficult trade-offs between exploitation possibilities, the time required to achieve management objectives, and protection of weak stocks.

In Sweden, there is a stated ambition to develop the management of Baltic salmon to become more population-specific and take into account ecosystem considerations. Such a development would be advantageous by e.g. enabling faster recovery of currently weak salmon populations. A management system that takes into account the status of individual populations and accounts for ecosystem considerations is expected to place increased demands on the biological advice delivered by SLU. To meet these demands, a model has been developed at SLU that makes it possible to estimate the composition of salmon populations in different coastal areas and during different time periods, which enables advice on how fishing should be managed to reduce the exploitation of weak populations. Large-scale compensatory releases of reared salmon, which have been ongoing for decades, constitute another important issue for the management, as this activity is associated with genetic risks according to recently published research from SLU.

Katarina Kyllmar: Environmental measures in agriculture is monitored by SLU

Lecturer: Katarina Kyllmar, Research Group Leader at the Department of Soil and Environment, SLU.

Moderator: Richard Johnson, Professor at the Department of Aquatic Sciences and Assessment, SLU.

Recording of Katarina Kyllmar's lecture.

Summary

The agricultural landscape has evolved where natural conditions are most favourable for agricultural production, meaning where the soils are often naturally rich in nutrients. Although the variations in agricultural production types are large, depending on soil type, climate and hydrology. On clay soils, growing of cereals and oilseeds dominate, while on farms with coarser soils, grass and animal husbandry are more common.

These nutrient-rich systems will always have nutrient losses. The comprehensiveness of these systems constitutes a basis for improving and developing measures to reduce the impact on the environment.

Within environmental monitoring and assessment, the approach includes not only the specific environmental issues but also the methods used. Long-term measurements, robust data storage and integration of data sources in assessments provide information on the effects of measures in agriculture. Environmental analysis also provides a basis for identifying areas with potential for mitigation measures.

For effective implementation of mitigation measures in agriculture and for the aim to achieve sustainability goals, the feedback approach in assessment constantly needs to be improved as new knowledge on measures and processes emerges. This requires cooperation between research topics and collaboration with authorities, municipalities, water organizations and farmers who work in practice to improve the environment.