Research project Thriving bays in the Baltic Sea

This project will investigate possibilities and remediation methods to reverse the negative environmental development taking place in many shallow bays of the Baltic Sea. It aims to contribute to new knowledge that clarify and quantify various influencing factors and effective methods to address them.

This project will investigate possibilities and methods to reverse the negative development that is taking place in many shallow bays (lagoons) of the Baltic Sea, due to e.g. eutrophication, physical disturbance and food web changes. The goals are both to contribute to new knowledge that clarify and quantify various influencing factors and effective methods to address them, as well as to spread hope and commitment to more remediation work in these ecosystems by showing good examples from the project.

The project will both try to regain well-functioning ecosystems and better conditions for recreation in a number of shallow demonstration bays after local actions, and produce solid recommendations on appropriate measures and costs for various situations from a number of case studies.

During the whole project communication of the work and investigations performed in the project, as well as dissemination of results and recommendations, will be important to increase and facilitate remediation work in more areas.
The case studies will focus on three influencing factors that are central to the status of these ecosystems:

•    Eutrophication
•    Physical impact (mainly related to leisure boats)
•    Changes in the food web (mainly weakened predatory fish stocks/dominance of stickleback). 

The project will be conducted in shallow bays in Svealand, but the choice of bays will be made in such a way that results and recommendations will be applicable to shallow bays in similar environments, for example in Sweden's and Finland's archipelago areas.

The thriving bays in the Baltic Sea research project studies internal phosphorus turnover, changes in bottom vegetation, boat-related disturbances and the role of reeds.

Please go to the Swedish page to learn more about the project.

Stockholm University Baltic Sea Centre

Sheltered bays are significant carbon sinks in the Baltic Sea

Coastal zones are identified as important natural carbon sinks globally, especially habitats with abundant vegetation such as seagrass meadows and mangrove areas. In brackish environments like the Baltic Sea, knowledge of carbon sequestration in coastal habitats is limited, but a new study shows that shallow and partly enclosed Baltic bays are significant sinks for carbon and nutrients. 2025-03-12

Stockholm University Baltic Sea Centre

Master's studies by the sea

Imagine being able to do your Master's work by the Baltic Sea during the summer. India Findji, who studies marine biology at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, managed to fulfill that dream this summer. She did her work at the Stockholm University field station Askö Laboratory, together with Jonna Källås, another Master's student from Sweden. India and Jonna both did their work within the large research project Thriving bays and investigated whether boat traffic has any clear influence on the water-clarity in the shallow bays of the Baltic Sea. India heard about the project through a professor at her own university. She contacted the researchers and became increasingly interested. – It sounded really exciting to discover Sweden and explore the Baltic Sea, says India. And I was not disappointed. The Stockholm archipelago is beautiful, I had never seen anything like that before. I loved spending so much time outdoors and living in a remote field station. It was also really fun to get to know Jonna and our supervisors Jocke and Sofia, and to learn about their Swedish culture. A piece of the puzzle for healthy bays The ‘Thriving bays’ project aims to investigate management measures to reverse the negative development seen in many shallow bays in the Baltic Sea. In many areas, clear, fish-rich waters with meadows of underwater plants and numerous small animals and fish fry have turned into a murky algae soup without predatory fish. – There are usually several reasons underlying this sad transformation, says India, but the role of boat traffic has never been properly investigated in the area. My study was about finding out to what extent boats can affect the health of shallow bays, and which criteria make the bays more or less sensitive to boat traffic.

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