Assessment and modelling Baltic ecosystem response
Person photo Prof Christoph Humborg
Aquatic Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology (Department of Applied Environmental Science)
Funding source: Swedish Environmental Protection Agency - Naturvårdsverket
Period: 1/1/09 - 12/31/11
Funding: 1704912 EUR
Description:
The general aim of AMBER is the implementation and application of the Ecosystem Approach to Management (EAM) to the Baltic Sea in the face of two closely intertwined environmental threats, eutrophication and climate change. Focus is on the coastal ecosystem (CE) because it supports most of the 85 mi inhabitants of nine nations around the Baltic Sea catchment. The CE receives most human derived nutrient loads from rivers, submarine ground water discharge (SGD), atmospheric deposition, and point sources and links the land with the open Baltic Sea. The CE controls the biogeochemical transformations of P-, Ncompounds (phosphate, nitrate, DON, etc.) through the close coupling between water and sediments. Furthermore, it is crucial for fish as reproduction area, nursery and grazing ground and tightly connected to the open Baltic Sea (Fig. 1). For an optimal integrated management and for the implementation and application of EAM concepts on the CE is it necessary to study in a holistic approach the link between the catchment (including groundwater) and the open Baltic Sea and how climate change will affect the river water constituents and the biogeochemistry of the coastal waters and sediments. Unfortunately it is difficult to separate the signals of climate change from the direct impact of human activity. To understand and manage the future development of CE, the separation of these signals is necessary. Hence, one of the first steps of AMBER is the separation of climate from anthropogenic signals by means of a combinatorial variation in model’s boundary conditions using the output of existing regional climate change scenarios and the output of a watershed model simulating changes in land use.
  
Partner Org. (10)
Research fields (2)
  
Baltic Sea Research Institute Warnemünde
, Germany
Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V.
, Germany
Helsinki University of Technology
, Finland
Institute of Oceanology, Polish Academy of Sciences
, Poland
Klaipėda University
, Lithuania
Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research
, Germany
Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI)
, Sweden
University of Hamburg
, Germany
University of Helsinki
, Finland
University of Turku
, Finland