Monitoring of Water Bodies in Finland Juhani Kettunen

Monitoring of Water Bodies in Finland Juhani Kettunen & Seppo Hellsten

Outline ● ● ● History Why do we monitor? How do we monitor ecological status today? What are the challenges in our system? What will we do in the near future?

HISTORY Hydrological monitoring ● Basis of monitoring ○ Water levels ○ Water flows ● Benefits to ○ Flood protection ○ Drainage & irrigation ○ Water borne traffic ● Hydropower production ○ Water flows and levels ● National and international needs ● Climate change scenarios 3

Water (physico-chemical) quality monitoring HISTORY ● Standardized field and laboratory procedures ○ Comparability ● Regular system since early 70’s ○ Quick and easy to establish ● Sometimes difficult to interpret ○ Especially in clean waters 4

HISTORY Hydrobiological monitoring ● Plants and animals ○ Producers using nutrients and energy ● Status of waters ○ Visible for human eyes ○ Indicating ecosystem welfare ● Phytoplankton monitoring ○ Regular from early 70’s 5

WHY Why do we monitor? ● Environmental monitoring ○ Systematic studies that observe the state of the environment. ● Systems based on ○ Environmental objectives and legislation ● The purpose ○ To assess the progress in environmental objectives ○ To detect new environmental issues. EU JRC 6

WHY International obligations ○ http: //rod. eionet. europa. eu/

WHY Types of surface water monitoring ● Surveillance monitoring ○ To provide information of long term changes ○ To supplement and validate the impact assessment ● Operational monitoring ○ In waterbodies under environmental pressure ○ At risk of failing to meet the environmental objectives. ● Investigative monitoring ○ Cause and effect relationships 8

WHY Surveillance (basic) monitoring ● Information on long term changes ○ Hydrological trends ○ Water quality in lakes, rivers & coastal areas ● Impact assessment ○ Reference conditions Lake Päijänne 9

WHY Operational monitoring – Largely obligations to polluters N t/a ● Waterbodies under human pressure ○ Industrial wastewaters ○ Municipal wastewaters ○ Diffusive loading from agriculture ● Obligations in permits ○ Environmental monitoring and reporting ○ Collaborative measures ○ 80% of all surface water monitoring Industry P t/a N t/a Municipal P t/a 10

WHY Transboundary monitoring - Wastewater loading in transboundary rivers From Finland to Russia)

HOW © Aroviita Current ecological status monitoring in lakes © Mitikka & Lepistö 12 © http: //www. biopix. com

Assessment of ecological status HOW ● Identification of reference conditions ● Calculating ecological status – deviation for good status Stoddard et al. 2006 Ecol. Appl. 16: 1267 -.

HOW How to classify? ● ● Phytoplankton Macrophytes and phytobenthos Benthic invertebrates Fishes 5 m ○ Abundance and frequency ○ Biomass, blooming (phytoplankton) ○ Sensitive and non-sensitive relationship – missing of important species group (benthic invertebrates) ○ Age groups etc. (fishes)

Taneli Duunari-Työntekijäinen, SYKE 28. 2. 2021 HOW Phytoplankton ● Lakes and coasts ○ Inapplicable in rivers ● Time consuming ○ Easy sampling ○ Tedious laboratory ● Rapid indicator ○ Eutrophication ● A proxy measure ○ Chlorophyll -a 15

© http: //www. oulu. fi/electronoptics Phytobenthos (periphyton, diatoms) HOW • Aquatic benthic algae, grow attached to surfaces such as rocks or larger plants, primary producers © Karjalainen • Ubiquitous in lotic systems (esp. small rivers) • Lake littoral habitats • High number of species • Integrate physical and chemical disturbances to a stream reach • Sampling easy and relatively cheap • Identification requires high expertise 16 © http: //www. oulu. fi/ electronoptics • A rapid response time to both exposure and recovery • Used for bio-indication in rivers

HOW Benthic fauna = Benthos, zoobenthos ● Macrozoobenthos/Macro-invertebrates ○ < 0. 5 mm ○ In both stagnant and flowing waters ● Heterogenic group ○ Worms, shells, insects etc. ● Feeding ○ Algaes, fungis, organic matter etc. ) ● Good indicator values for ○ Eutrophication ○ Acidification ○ Hydromorphology 17

HOW Number of species Sensitive for waterlevel changes Water level drawdown during winter (m) Aroviita & Hämäläinen (2008)

HOW Fishes ● Common in lakes and rivers ● Easy to identify ● Easily understandable by public ○ Good indicator ● Monetary value ○ Fishery ○ Recreational fishery ● Uses different trophy levels ○ Plankton, bethic invertebrates, plants, fishes http: //www. biopix. com/

HOW Constrains in use ● Fish population ○ Almost always manipulated by fishery and stocking ○ Difficult to distinguish effect of eutrophication and human use ● Sampling ○ Expensive and time demanding http: //www. biopix. com/

HOW Aquatic macrophytes • Growing in water or at littoral zone • Lakes: emergent, submergent, or floating • River: aquatic mosses are important • Importance • Refuge for fish, macroinvertebrates and birds • Food for fish and wildlife Toivonen & Lappalainen (1980) (Kalff 2002) 21

Aquatic macrophytes HOW • Stable – best indicator of littoral zone • Respond to e. g. (-) turbidity, herbicides, metals salinisation, water level change and (+) eutrophication • Sampling: littoral transects (identification in the field) and aerial photography • Max. colonization depth an important lake characteristic 22

Water bodies and Monitoring stations Surface water category WFD 2010 sites water bodies Lakes 787 4275 Rivers 433 1602 Coastal 127 276 Total 1347 6153 Surveillance monitoring Operational monitoring Both 23

HOW Ecological status of surface waters 2015 by proportion of total length (rivers) or surface area

Current status of monitoring? HOW Both; 150 ● Monitoring now ○ Rivers 437 ○ Lakes 775 ● Contradiction ○ Ministry of finance => too expensive ○ EU => too few sites ● Result by now ○ monitoring reduced by 20% Surv. monitoring; 720 Operational monitoring; 342

What shall we do to keep ecological status monitoring alive? WHAT ● Streamlining ○ Statistical design ○ Traditional methods with less costs ● Technical innovations new approaches ○ New ways to get data ● Crowdsourcing and citizen science ○ People are doing all kind of voluntary works 26

WHAT Rotation and grouping? STREAM LINING • • Physico-chemical < R 1 Phytoplankton R 1, Benthic invertebrates R 3, Macrophytes and fishes R 3 R 2 R 3 R 6/R 12 or grouping

Oligotrophic large lakes: 2006 -2012 June-August Total biomass (mg/l) STREAM LINING WHAT Grouping and rotation possible G/M H/G Eutrophic lake Lappajärvi P/B M/P G/M H/G In more eutrophic conditions extensive monitoring is needed

Field stations, smart buoys, ships-of opportunity and satellites 29 2929

WHAT Autonomous ”boat” ● Can be equipped with different probes and samplers ● Simultaneous bottom and submerged vegetation mapping TECHNICAL INNOVATIONS

WHAT Remote sensing by UAV TECHNICAL INNOVATIONS ● Case study in North-Sweden (Husson 2012) ○ Autonomous flight and data transferred to GIS ○ High accuracy (5 cm resolution) ○ Fit between field data and images of 94, 6 % 31

DNA/RNA methods WHAT TECHNICAL INNOVATIONS ● Rapidly developing area ● Already in semi-operational use with microbes e. g. Tolkkinen et al. 2013 32

Järvi. Wiki / Lake. Wiki application http: //www. jarviwiki. fi/wiki /Etusivu WHAT Crowdsourcing 33

WHAT Smart phone applications Crowdsourcing ● Secchi 3000 device ● Levävahti application 34

WHAT Special applications for advanced users Crowdsourcing ● Normal Lowrance echo sounder ○ Boating around and submit data to server ○ Depth contour map and share of submersed vegetation ● Several providers 35

Summary ● Traditional sampling is decreasing ● There will be more new monitoring technologies available ● Crowdsourcing fits to some specific interesting aims