About the project
Ninety million people live in the Baltic Sea Region. They face declining water quality and the consequences of extreme weather events due to climate change. The region has escalating challenges with eutrophication, reduced water availability due to drought and flooding, and loss of other ecosystem services especially in agriculture intensive parts of the region. How we manage water in the agricultural landscape will have impact on the quality of water, the availability of water, food production, biodiversity and rural development. Climate change is adding additional drivers.
Waterdrive is dedicated to investigating and learning more across the Baltic Sea Region concerning water management in agricultural landscapes. The basic question is if local level and cross-actor collaboration can play a more significant role in reaching set targets and policies? Waterdrive will investigate this in a number of case areas across the Baltic Sea Region. The findings will form recommendations for action on multipe levels such as governmental, agricultural advisory systems and local governments.
Several key assumptions and questions form the basis of Waterdrive
- Local communities and cross-sector cooperation can play a more significant role in the transitions than achieved so far. How can local cooperation be organised, and what are the experiences so far?
- Farmers and local communities will require new, more holistic water management services to cope with the challenges ahead. What types of new services are requested and required?
- There is a need for multi-scale decision support in determining the most optimal locations for measures and spatial planning purposes. How can digital data be combined and used at different scales for that purpose?
- Can the current policy environment for water and land management meet future challenges and support a smart transition? What would changes to the policy environment look like?
The main target groups for Waterdrive are local authorities and farming communities in agricultural landscapes of the Baltic Sea Region and national authorities responsible for policy development. The project is active in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Russia and Denmark.
Waterdrive involves 23 partners representing advisory services, local authorities, interest organisations, national authorities and academia. The lead partner is the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.
Contacts
Project Coordinator: Staffan Lund, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
email: staffan.lund@slu.se
mobile: +46706303829
Communication Officer: Zanda Melnalksne, Farmers’ Parliament, Latvia
email: zanda@zemniekusaeima.lv
mobile: +37129484101
Toolbox Website Manager: Maciej Kowalczyk, Pheno Horizon OLP Sp. Z o.o.
email: maciej.kowalczyk@phenohorizon.com
mobile: +48607929905
Waterdrive is funded by the EU Interreg Baltic Sea Region Programme and national contributions from Denmark, Poland, Russia, Lithuania, Finland, Estonia and Latvia.