Brownification of waters is a threat to aquatic ecosystems over large areas in Europe. A new paper links increasing concentrations of dissolved organic carbon to climate, deposition, and land-use, and the complex interactions between them. The authors studied 12 small forested headwater catchments in Finland, with monitoring records from 1990 to 2019. The catchments had a large gradient of climate

“The ambition to use forestry as a climate mitigation measure should take into consideration the potential effects of forestry management methods on soil and surface water quality, in particular in acid-sensitive areas such as southern Norway.” This is the main message of a new paper titled “Intensified forestry as a climate mitigation measure alters surface water quality in low intensity

Can land-use-specific export coefficients be used together with satellite images (Landsat) and/or regional land-use statistics to estimate loads and concentrations of total nitrogen, total phosphorus, and suspended solids? This question was raised by the authors of a new publication in Science of the Total Environment. Main author is Biowater’s PhD student Joy Bhattacharjee. The study area was the Simojoki catchment

How can we reconstruct the history of drainage and land use in a catchment? This question is important if we are to understand historical hydrological data in peatlands. PhD student Joy Bhattacharjee (University of Oulu) and co-authors have used a combination of historical aerial photos and LIDAR data to study this. The objectives were to develop techniques to map the

Dr. Mette Vodder Carstensen is the second PhD-student associated with BIOWATER that has achieved a PhD, and the first that is funded by NordForsk. Mette studied at the University of Aarhus, Denmark, and held her dissertation in December 2020. The final, formal approval was given at the end of February 2021, and now we are proud to present her work.

A new paper on lake water browning has just been published. Increasing lake water color has been observed in the Northern Hemisphere during recent decades. Browner water has pronounced effects on both the freshwater ecology and society, as it may reduce light transmission, alter aquatic species composition, enhance anoxia and increase the cost of drinking water treatment.  Explanation to increased

With the emerging bioeconomy it is important to understand how forestry drainage affects nutrient losses. A new paper has used long-term data to assess export at different spatial scales in Finland. The authors found that long-term impacts of forest drainage are much higher than previously estimated. Hence, drained areas of forests are hotspots for the export of total nitrogen, total

Reference conditions can be defined as the natural state of a water body. The concept is becoming increasingly important since climate and land use changes increase the pressures on our water bodies. However, determining nutrient reference conditions in areas that have been cultivated for centuries has proven difficult. BIOWATER scientists have therefore compared how the Nordic countries have approached the

“Ecosystem services” has become an increasingly used concept in the academic world. One (of many) definitions is that ecosystem services are the benefits people obtain from ecosystems. Like the feature photo indicates, this can be the recreational benefits given to us by a lake, or it can be clean drinking water, healthy fish for dinner, insects that pollinate and thereby