If the bioeconomy does not develop in a sustainable way, the modifications of the rural landscape, in combination with expected climate change, will seriously affect our freshwater resources, and thereby society. This is one of many conclusions in BIOWATER’s special issue “Environmental effects of a green bioeconomy” (Ambio 49-11). There are altogether 12 papers in the issue, and we have

Fatemeh Hashemi and co-authors from the Biowater project were very early keen to investigate the dynamics of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) forms across the range of Nordic mini-catchments. They wanted to develop “catchment cartoons” that could be used by scientists when communicating results to stakeholders and decision makers. Fatemeh’s newly published paper in the Journal of Water with the

Biowater’s PhD student Mette Vodder Carstensen (University of Aarhus) and co-authors asked themselves: How efficient are mitigation measures targeting nutrient losses from drainage system in the Nordic region? Main author Mette V. Carstensen writes: “This was our first question setting the stage for this study, as despite many initiatives and efforts, the losses of nutrients to our rivers, lakes and

Biowater is proud to announce that Dr. Faisal Bin Ashraf successfully defended his thesis on 29 May 2020. Faisal’s thesis, River regimes and energy demand interactions in Nordic rivers, was well received by the opponents. Dr. Faisal Bin Ashraf is by this our first examined PhD! Faisal has studied at the University of Oulu in Finland. He has analysed the

When we entered 2020, Biowater was half-way. Our original plans for the third Summer Camp was to meet at the Hurdalssjøen Hotel, at a scenery lake site in Norway. We envisaged to continue our tradition with a combination of scientific meetings and social gatherings. However, as with so many other meetings these days, we had to change our plans. Hence,

Peatlands provide habitats for many species and a variety of ecosystem services worldwide. This poses challenges for land-use planners in balancing between increasing use of peatland resources and safeguarding biodiversity and ecosystem services. In a new BIOWATER-paper, an integrated biophysical-economic modeling approach was used to investigate how alternative land-use and land-management (LULM) options jointly affect economic returns from marketed (timber,

Read the entertaining account on how a geographer and ecologist finds herself in a fieldwork related to ecosystem services! The fieldwork was part of the studies of BIOWATER’s PhD-student Bart Immerzeel, to assess how people value the landscape for recreation and other types of cultural ecosystem services. Since Bart is not speaking Finnish, it was necessary to find local researchers

A new paper discusses the climate gas nitrous oxide (N2O) in boreal lakes, using data from 112 lakes in Finland. Lakes and streams act as recipients of carbon, nitrogen, and other nutrients transported from land, but also contribute to landscape greenhouse gasses (GHG) by emitting carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide (N2O). Freshwater N2O has received much less interest compared

Economic development creates challenges for land-use planners in balancing between increasing the use of natural resources and safeguarding biodiversity and ecosystem services. In a new BIOWATER-paper, peat production in Finland has been used to analyse the trade-offs between economy, biodiversity and other ecosystem services. The authors have used multi-objective numeric optimization models. The results show that with a relatively small decrease

Biowater’s PhD student Mette Carstensen has, together with colleagues, produced a paper on controlled drainage. Their research questions were: Can controlled drainage be applied during the drainage season (September to April) without harming winter crops? How will it affect N and P loss? And will it enhance denitrification in the root zone? To answer these questions they investigated controlled drainage