BaltCoast (A system approach framework for coastal research and management in the Baltic)

Senast ändrad: 03 mars 2020

The overall purpose of this project is to investigate the impact of process and output oriented decision tools for improved coastal management at the local, national and Baltic Sea scale. The interdisciplinary consortium consists of scholars from most Baltic Sea riparian countries; Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. The economic analysis is mainly focused on management of eutrophication, which creates oxygen depletion, increases the frequency of harmful algal blooms, and changes the composition of fish species at the disadvantage of commercial species in coastal and marine waters. We examine the long term cost effective nutrient management which includes the design of nutrient trading schemes and mussel farming as a possible abatement measure.

The overall purpose of this project is to investigate the impact of process and output oriented decision tools for improved coastal management at the local, national and Baltic Sea scale. The interdisciplinary consortium consists of scholars from most Baltic Sea riparian countries; Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. The economic analysis is mainly focused on management of eutrophication, which creates oxygen depletion, increases the frequency of harmful algal blooms, and changes the composition of fish species at the disadvantage of commercial species in coastal and marine waters. This can have serious impacts on communities relaying on healthy coastal zones for their living, such as fishery and tourism.

Specific management challenges are the uncertain, long term and linked transports of nutrient in the catchment and the sea, and the long term processes. In this project the economic analysis examines optimal management of the Baltic Sea under consideration of these challenges and also other factors, such as climate change and technological development. To this end, we develope a dynamic cost-effectiveness model which accounts for differences in the sea’s adjustment to the loads of the two nutrients, uncertainty in climate change effects with probabilistic constraints on nutrient pool targets, and uncertain technological development in a mean-variance framework.

One main reason for the uncertainty in nutrient loads is the difficulty of assessing loads to the sea from agricultural activities in the drainage basin. So far, so-called retention rates have been established for different drainage basins which show the share of emission from an upstream source the reaches the coastal water of the sea. One task in this project is to carry out econometric analysis of the determinants of nutrient loads in the sea, which is made on data from early 1970s on loads in the sea and agricultural activities in the sea. Another task is to include the forest areas in the dynamic optimization model, which can account for a considerable part of the nutrient load to the to the sea, and are also important in the climate change management.

However, irrespective of characteristics and determinants of optimal nutrient management, it can be implemented in practice only with appropriate policy instruments. A specific focus in this project is the examination of the necessary properties of nutrient trading schemes in order to implement cost-effective solution. For example, whether or not double-dipping, i.e. if the measures should give credits on both markets, should be implemented. A final task of the project is to analyse and empirical determine the potential of mussel farming as an offset for agriculture, sewage treatment plants and other sources that need to reduce their emission.

Fakta:

Project period
2014-2017
 
Project leader
Ing-Marie Gren
 
Project co-workers
Abenezer Aklilu, Frederic Ang
 
Project funder
EU Bonus, Swedish Environmental Protection Agency

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Kontaktinformation

Ing-Marie Gren, professor
Institutionen för ekonomi, SLU
ing-marie.gren@slu.se018-67 17 53