ENA7 project

The Baltic Sea

Introduction

Our topic is the Baltic Sea. We chose this topic because all of us have studied the biology course, which deals with it. We all are interested in the Baltic Sea because its environment and species are unique. However, it is very sensitive to changes. The Baltic Sea is one of the most polluted seas in the world and its status has been bad for a long time. This is why we are particularly interested in what the problems are in the Baltic Sea, why its status is so bad and how its status could be improved.

In this article we proceed in such a way that after the introduction we tell the background of the Baltic Sea. After the background we deal with suggested solutions to improve the condition of the Baltic Sea. Finally, the article contains conclusion where we summarize our results.      

About the Baltic Sea

The Baltic Sea is part of the Atlantic Ocean and is located in Northern Europe. It is located between many countries such as Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Poland, Germany, Russia and the Baltic States. The Baltic Sea is pretty shallow one because its average depth is only 54 meters. However, there are also extensive more than 200 meters deep areas. The deepest point is about 459 meters.

The Baltic Sea is the world’s second largest brackish water basin and it is special with its own qualities. The Baltic Sea has low salinity and one reason for this is plentiful rains in the Baltic Sea’s catchment areas. Rains and rivers bring more sweet water from catchment areas than there evaporates away. However, the closer we get to the ocean the more there usually is saltiness.

The Baltic Sea’s catchment area extends over a wide area. It’s four times bigger than The Baltic Sea itself and extends to 14 state areas. It comprises entirety Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Russia’s region of Kaliningrad. In addition, it also includes a large part of Finland and parts of Russia, Belarus, Germany and Denmark and small areas of Norway, Ukraine, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The Baltic Sea’s saltiness is stratified. Salty water that comes through Danish straits sinks to the bottom of the sea as an abundant salty layer. This layer is called Halocline. Halocline is created when water movements, caused by the storms, don’t affect that deep to mix water layers.

Problems

The Baltic Sea is quite small, but has many problems and risks. Eutrophication happens naturally, but people’s actions accelerate it. Farmers use fertilizers, which include nitrogen and phosphorus. These are the elements, which cause eutrophication the most. The amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus also rise up because people lay their sewage to the Baltic Sea. Eutrophication can lead to oxygen depletion, which can cause mass deaths of fish.

Heavy metals and toxic substances, for example, lead, mercury, DDT, might be carried to the sea and cause serious problems, for example, to seals and white-tailed eagles. The toxins lower the vitality of the species. In the worst case, the species will die out. The animals of the Baltic Sea have also other kind of danger. Climate mission affects strongly to the condition of the Baltic Sea. As the weather gets warmer the seawater’s salt content gets also lower. This means that species, which live in salty water, have to move to the Atlantic Ocean.

The Baltic Sea has a lot of traffic and a big part of the emissions comes from it. Ships’ impure fuels cause nitrogen and sulphur emissions. This means that eutrophication increases and the seawater gets more acid. Because there are plenty of ships in the Baltic Sea, there is a huge risk for oil spills. The water is cold, so oil decomposes poorly and the Baltic Sea is also a small sea, so the oil spreads quickly.  

Problem solving

The flowing of fertilizers to the Baltic Sea should be stopped so that the Baltic Sea’s eutrophication would decrease. Nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers should be used less. Using animal feces as fertilizer is a good option and organic growing is, of course, the best way to stop the eutrophication.

When fertilizers are used near a water system there should be left a protecting zone between water and the field. This means that farmers shouldn’t plant the whole field and leave a couple of meters wide zone full of bushes and grass which would absorb nutrients. Another tip is to keep something growing on the field for the whole year. If there are all the time plants on the field, fertilizers can’t run away because the plants absorb them.

Sewage treatment should be better. There’s already a pretty good system in Finland which consists of mechanical, biological and chemical part. A lot of it could still be done more thoroughly. A latrine of a granny is not a big deal. The huge problems are metropolises like St. Petersburg where sewage isn’t purified at all. The course is right anyway. The  sewage treatment of St. Petersburg was reformed in 2013. Nowadays almost all of its sewage is purified.

Traffic on the Baltic Sea should be more overseen. Besides the risk of oil spills, there happens a lot of illegal flushing of oil tanks. At the moment, it’s allowed to spill handled sewage to the sea. Harbours’ capacity to take in sewage is developed. According to EU sulphur directive ships’ sulphur emissions will decrease and a statue to decrease nitrogen emissions is also already talked about. Both ships’ fuels and cars’ fuels should be developed more ecological.

There’s a good situation with lead emissions in Finland. Using lead shots, when water birds are hunted, is forbidden and there’s no more lead in gas. Cutting down mercury and cadmium emissions isn’t that easy. Fertilizers, which don’t include that much cadmium have been started to use. Filtering these heavy metals in manufacturing is being developed all the time.

It’s not allowed to use DDT or PCB in Finland and that’s why concentrations of these organic toxins are reducing in a good pace. DDT emissions still come from Africa to Europe, so should be globally forbidden to use it. Luckily, over a hundred states have signed an agreement which purpose is to limit the usage of  Persistent Organic Pollutants like PCB.

Stopping climate change is also helping the Baltic Sea. Carbon emissions should reduce. Instead of fossil fuels there should be used, for example, nuclear power or renewable energy sources like solar energy. Meat-eating should be cut down because meat has a big coal footprint. Recycling and driving less by one's own car are little things, which effect to the climate change.

Conclusions

The Baltic Sea is a shallow sea and its amount of water is quite small and its catchment area is big which makes it sensitive to changes. Part of eutrophication is natural, but one of the problems in the Baltic Sea is eutrophication caused by people. When fertilizers flow to the sea, nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations rise. Therefore fertilizers should be used less and people should use more organic fertilizers, for example, animal feces. People should also make sure that just a small part of the used fertilizers ends up to the water system.

Laying the sewage to the water system is also one of the reasons of eutrophication. Therefore sewage should be handled and cleaned better. Heavy metals and toxic substances cause problems to sea creatures and can even lead to extinctions. Big part of the emissions comes from the traffic in the Baltic Sea, so it should be overseen much better.

It’s really important to protect the Baltic Sea all around Europe because its catchment basin is  large. Protecting the Baltic Sea and improving its condition are necessary if Europeans don’t want to live on the beach of destroyed sea.

Bibliography:

Happonen Päivi, Holopainen Mervi, Sotkas Panu, Tenhunen Antero, Tihtarinen-Ulmanen Marja, Venäläinen Juha 2013. Bios 3 Ympäristöekologia. 8. uudistettu painos. Sanoma Pro Oy.

Wikipedia, free encyclopedia. Itämeri. https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itämeri, Read 12.10.2015

WWF. Merenkulku Itämerellä.  http://wwf.fi/alueet/itameri/merenkulku/, Read 12.10.2015

Aaltojen alla. http://www.aaltojenalla.fi/cgi-bin/bsbw/search.cgi?loc=1&3=3&lang=fin&file=Ihminen&mark=&tm=universal_1&tm_d=content_1&menu=menu4, Read 7.11.2015

Emmi, Anni, Naomi, Iina, Riina