Title: Policy tools for Baltic Sea nutrient management
Funding source: BONUS grant
Total funding: EUR 450 000,00
Funding for BSC: EUR 77 400,00
Implementation period: 01.10.2018. - 31.03.2020.
Coordinator: Aarhus University
Latvian partner: Baltic Studies Centre
BONUS TOOLS2SEA assessed how national regulatory traditions, individual attitudes and human behaviour shape nutrient management policies, in order to understand countries’ policy performance around the Baltic Sea and beyond. In addition, BONUS TOOLS2SEA provided a synthesis of the most reliable cost and benefit estimates, identifying socio-economically suitable policy instruments for spatially targeted nutrient management. The research also took into account distributional implications, regional disparities and possible win-win approaches. To facilitate the accomplishment of Baltic Sea Action Plan targets, BONUS TOOLS2SEA provided an outlook on possible future directions in emissions abatement. BONUS TOOLS2SEA also identified critical gaps in current knowledge and translations into practice to provide suggestions for pilot experiments and innovations.
BONUS TOOLS2SEA synthesised results from previous BONUS funded projects (MIRACLE; GO4BALTIC; GOHERR; BALTICAPP; COCOA; SOILS2SEA) relating to nutrient management. Moreover, BONUS TOOLS2SEA summarised research results and recommendations from a broad array of studies, projects and publications available in the international literature, as well as in the national languages of the Baltic Sea region. In addition, stakeholders from farming, NGO’s and government agencies were invited to provide input in an early phase of the project and a policy scenario workshop in November 2019, where preliminary findings were presented and reviewed.
Results from BONUS TOOLS2SEA will be subject to the highest standards of peer review, and they will be available in a condensed version as policy briefs accompanied by infographics, with summaries in national languages of the Baltic Sea Region. Three sets of brochures will target farmers, water planners and investors respectively.
A consortium of four partners was responsible for BONUS TOOLS2SEA, including Baltic Studies Centre (Latvia), Finnish Environment Institute SYKE, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Aarhus University (Denmark).
Further information about the project is available at http://projects.au.dk/BONUS_TOOLS2SEA/
A brief presentation of the project is available here: https://pure.au.dk/portal/files/135743504/BONUS_TOOLS2SEA_communityday_ANDERSEN.pdf
Academic publications co-authored by BSC researchers:
- Andersen, M. S., Andersson, A., Brady, M., Graversgaard, M., Kilis, E., Pedersen, A. B., Hvarregaard Thorsøe, M., Valve, H. 2022. The Helsinki Convention’s agricultural nutrient governance: how domestic institutions matter. Journal of Baltic Studies, DOI: 10.1080/01629778.2022.2155202
- Brady, M., Andersen, M. S., Andersson, A., Kilis, E., Saarela, S. and Thorsøe, M. H. 2022. Strengthening the policy framework to resolve lax implementationof the Baltic Sea Action Plan for agriculture. Ambio, 51(1): 69–83. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-021-01573-3
- Thorsøe, M. H., Andersen, M. S., Brady, M. V., Graversgaard, M., Kilis, E., Pedersen, A. B., Pitzén, S. and Valve, H. 2022. Promise and performance of agricultural nutrient management policy: Lessons from the Baltic Sea. Ambio 51(1): 36-50. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-021-01549-3