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DYNAMIC OF THE BALTIC IAEA PROJECTS HELP ASSESS THE SEA’S MARINE ENVIRONMENT

BY IOLANDA OSVATH,MASSOUD SAMIEI, L.VALKUNAS, AND JOZEF ZLATNANSKY

nvironmental protection An almost land-locked continuous rate, the Baltic Sea’s is a field of growing basin, draining through a large deepest waters are renewed only Eimportance for various number of about one periodically, with a variable IAEA programmes, in fifth of the area of , the frequency determined by particular in the European Baltic Sea is the largest brackish complex meteorological . Many countries in the (low-) water body in the processes. In this century, region are suffering from world. The slow water major inflows of serious degradation of the exchange with the North Sea water occurred approximately environment. The share of through the shallow and every 11 years, but this cycle IAEA technical cooperation narrow results in has been known to vary over projects focusing on a long residence time of water the last decades. Between these environmental issues represents in the Baltic Sea of between 25 inflows, anoxic conditions may almost 15% of the total to 40 years. This creates occur in the Baltic’s near- programme for Europe. favorable conditions for the bottom water, leading to the Based on requests from its accumulation of pollutants. formation of hydrogen Member States, the IAEA has In winter the Baltic is largely sulphide, which is toxic to been involved in major projects covered by ice, further slowing organisms. Thus, areas of “dead related to terrestrial, down the weak wind-driven bottom”, devoid of all forms of atmospheric and marine water circulation and benthic or higher life forms, 9 environmental assessment as decreasing the potential for may develop, sometimes well as restoration and pollutant dispersion. Particular covering one-third of the entire remediation activities in several hydrographic conditions area of the sea floor. parts of Europe. They focus on: sustained by the limited water Overimposed on this natural ■ Capacity building; exchange with the rest of the fragility, anthropogenic ■ Assessment of possible world’s and the influences led to further contamination from important inflow of environmental change and radionuclides as a priority issue favor the persistence of - degradation. Over 16 million among other pollutants, related depleted bottom waters, people live on the coast and to the Chernobyl accident and inappropriate for supporting about 80 million in the sea’s the risk associated to other marine life. As opposed to its catchment area. The coastline is nuclear facilities; shallower waters, which are shared between nine countries: ■ Increased coordination with renewed at a slow but , , , (and participation in) international environmental Ms. Osvath is a staff member at the IAEA’s Marine Environment projects. Laboratory in Monaco. Mr. Samiei is Head of the Europe Section, The Baltic Sea area has been Division for Europe, America and West , Department of no exception and for several Technical Cooperation. Mr. Zlatnansky is a staff member of that years has had the IAEA’s section. Mr. Valkunas is the Director of the Institute of Physics in attention. This paralleled the , . Acknowledgment: Part of the information in this growing awareness and concern article is drawn from publications of the Commission, such of Baltic countries about the as the Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of environmental state of the the Baltic Sea Area, The Baltic Sea Joint Comprehensive Baltic Sea, which has become a Environmental Action Programme, The Baltic Sea Pollution Load major issue during the past Compilations and the report on Radioactivity in the Baltic Sea 1984- three decades. 91 (BSEP 61, 1995). IAEA BULLETIN, 43/2/2001 environmental situation in THE BALTIC SEA & CATCHMENT AREA many parts of the Baltic Sea. The Baltic Sea is a shallow semi-enclosed sea with an area of 415,000 Pollution from and square kilometers, and a maximum depth of 460 meters. The accidents, practices related catchment area extends over 1.7 million square kilometers and an to fishing and fish farming average of 480 cubic kilometers of freshwater is discharged into the and, more important, sea every year. Almost half of this inflow drains through the seven atmospheric inputs of largest rivers: , , , Nemunas, , pollutants also contributed to and Göta älv. further disturbing the ecological balance. Harmful or toxic and persistent substances (e.g. PCBs, DDT, PAHs, polychlorinated compounds, pesticides, mercury), nutrients (phosphorus and nitrogen compounds causing ), heavy metals, radionuclides and hydrocarbons have been the main causes of concern. The type and amount of pollutants reaching the Baltic Sea, as well as the scale of the impacted areas, varied in time. But in the early , experts appreciated that the Sea’s 10 pollution had become a threat to its living resources and ultimately to the health and well-being of the human population depending on its resources.

REGIONAL COLLABORATION In the wake of the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment, in 1974 the governments of the littoral States of the Baltic Sea signed the Baltic Marine Environmental Protection Convention, known as the Helsinki Convention, which Source: Helsinki Commission entered into force in 1980. The steering agency for the , , Lithuania, industrial and agricultural Convention is the Helsinki , and . wastes and poorly treated or Commission – Baltic Marine The catchment area, however, even untreated wastewater Environment Protection also extends over parts of from communities through the Commission (HELCOM). , the , tributary rivers or directly into The Contracting Parties to the , the Slovak Republic the sea have caused a serious Convention include the nine IAEA BULLETIN, 43/2/2001 and . Discharges of deterioration of the countries sharing the Baltic coastline and the European The Convention sets the comprehensive reports on the Community. framework for the adoption of Baltic Sea’s marine The Baltic Sea Declaration -- legislative, administrative and environment and pollution establishing the long-term other relevant measures to load compilations. The “4th objective of ensuring the prevent and eliminate Periodic Assessment of the ecological restoration of the pollution in order to restore State of the Marine Baltic Sea and the preservation and promote the ecological Environment of the Baltic Sea, of its ecological balance -- was balance of the Baltic Sea Area. 1994-1998” has been finalized adopted at the level of Prime The Action Programme and will be published shortly. Ministers at the Baltic Sea addresses these issues by In a press release in Environment Conference in identifying problems and 2001, HELCOM reported on Ronneby (Sweden), in 1990. priority actions in all countries this latest study’s findings. It Two years later the Diplomatic within the Baltic Sea said the study shows that the Conference on the Protection catchment area. The actions taken by the Baltic Sea of the Marine Environment of Programme encompasses both countries to protect the marine the Baltic Sea Area adopted the preventive actions to promote environment are going in the Baltic Sea Environmental sustainable use of the Baltic right direction, but that the Declaration. It endorsed the Sea environment and curative efforts need to be continued strategic approach and actions to remediate the and intensified, with particular principles of the Baltic Sea existing environmental attention to sustainable Joint Comprehensive Action degradation due to pollution economic growth. Programme. from point and diffuse sources. Many international The strategy is based on STUDIES OF organizations, among them the development of appropriate RADIOACTIVITY IN IAEA, and financial environmental policies and THE BALTIC SEA institutions were invited, as legislation, implementation of The main sources of observers, to attend this key regulatory reforms, promotion anthropogenic radionuclides to 11 Diplomatic Conference in of economic incentives to the Baltic Sea are global fallout 1992. The same occasion also encourage environmentally from nuclear weapons testing, saw the signing of the new technologies, releases from reprocessing Helsinki Convention, which strengthening of institutional plants at Sellafield (UK) and entered into force at the capacity and human resources Cap de La Hague () and beginning of the year 2000 and increasing local capacities the fallout which came from after ratification by all to finance environmental the Chernobyl nuclear power Contracting Parties. The measures. The Programme plant accident in 1986. Convention was expanded to includes elements to support By comparison, inputs from include the internal waters of applied research and the nine nuclear power plants the Contracting Parties and the environmental awareness and and from the research centres, concepts of the Precautionary education. hospitals and other facilities in Principle, Best Environmental Environmental monitoring the sea’s catchment area are Practice, and Best Available and assessment play an extremely low. A former coastal Technology. It states the firm important role in the regional open dumping ground in determination of the collaboration. It provides Sillamäe (Estonia) -- used for Contracting Parties to assure HELCOM with reliable data disposing of mineral processing the ecological restoration of the allowing the commission to residues containing uranium Baltic Sea. It recognizes that develop its environmental and thorium, and later the protection and policy and to assess the expanded to a waste depository enhancement of the marine effectiveness of measures to -- has been assessed as having environment of the Baltic Sea abate the pollution. An negligible radiological impact. Area are tasks that cannot extensive programme of Other relatively insignificant or effectively be accomplished by monitoring and assessment was potential sources of releases national efforts alone but by initiated early on. Periodically include reported small-scale close regional cooperation. HELCOM publishes past dumping by Sweden IAEA BULLETIN, 43/2/2001 AVERAGE CONCENTRATION OF CAESIUM-137 fallout as the radioactive IN SURFACE WATERS plume crossed the Sea in the (LOGARITHMIC SCALE, 1990) early days following the accident and to run-off from Antarctic rivers on adjacent S. contaminated land. In May- S. Pacific June 1986 its concentrations N.E.Atlantic in water ranged over two orders of magnitude, from C Atlantic below 50 Bq per cubic meter C Pacific in the south to over 5000 Bq Iceland per cubic meter in the Gulf of Indian Finland. NW Atlantic Surveys carried out in 1989 and 1994 show that N Pacific maximum values were still Mediterranean measured in surface water. But Greenland contamination had penetrated Norwegian significantly into the deep layers and an important Barents fraction of the inventory had North been transferred to the sediments. The surveys Black identify the and Irish the Northern Baltic Proper as Baltic the areas with highest 12 1000 100 10 1 0.1 concentrations, though levels Becquerel per cubic meter had decreased to below 140 Source: Estimates from the IAEA’s Coordinated Research Programme on “Sources of radioactivity in the marine environment and their relative contributions to overall doses from marine radioactivity - MARDOS”. Results published in IAEA-TECDOC-838 Bq per cubic meter eight years (1995). after the accident. Although these levels do not pose (IAEA-TECDOC-1105, caesium-137 inventory in radiological problems, in 1999) and the former Soviet water increased from 325 TBq relative terms the Baltic Sea Union (Yablokov Report, in 1985 to 4300-5000 TBq in remains the marine 1993), as well as authorized 1986. environment with the highest liquid discharges from Other short-lived caesium-137 contamination in decommissioning of a former radionuclides were detected in the world. (See graph.) USSR Navy training base in the marine environment The measurement and (Estonia). during the days and months assessment of Baltic Sea By far the most important following contamination. radioactivity has been an issue source of contamination of However, neither these nor of interest for the region, and the Baltic Sea with strontium-90 or long-lived it has been the subject of anthropogenic radionuclides isotopes of plutonium were many national and was the Chernobyl accident in considered significant for the international research 1986. The most significant marine environment, either programmes. Already back in contributions came from because of their fast decay or 1980 the IAEA initiated a caesium-137 and caesium- the very small increase in their Coordinated Research 134, which were relatively levels. Programme (CRP) for the easy to quantify and trace due The distribution of caesium- “Study of Radioactive to their well-established initial 137 on the Baltic Sea’s surface Materials in the Baltic Sea”. isotopic ratio of around 2:1 in was uneven. This was This programme aimed to the Chernobyl fallout. attributed to the direct evaluate the long-term IAEA BULLETIN, 43/2/2001 Following the accident, the deposition of Chernobyl’s behavior of radionuclides entering the Baltic Sea, including their transfer to humans. It was carried out in 1981-84 with the participation of scientists from all the countries surrounding the Baltic Sea and from IAEA’s Marine Environment Laboratory in Monaco (known at that time as the International Laboratory of Marine Radioactivity). The CRP resulted in valuable data on the levels and fate of anthropogenic radionuclides in the Baltic Sea and provided a key baseline assessment prior to the Chernobyl accident. Beginning in 1985, HELCOM decided to continue the work initiated by the IAEA and established a Group of Experts on Monitoring of Radioactive Substances in the Baltic Sea (). The IAEA continued to participate in 13 this work by providing an intensive quality assurance programme. MORS has published comprehensive reports on the levels and IAEA TECHNICAL implementation of high- trends of anthropogenic COOPERATION resolution 3-D hydrodynamic radionuclides in seawater, In 1998, the Lithuanian models of circulation, validated sediment and biota, Government requested the dispersion models, and validated inventories of radionuclides in IAEA’s support to develop the models for dose calculations. sea water, discharges from capabilities required for assessing A technical cooperation nuclear installations in the radioactivity in the Lithuanian project with a budget of catchment area, modelling of part of the Baltic Sea. In $360,000 was designed in radionuclide transport and particular, the interest was in 1999. It aims to develop a assessment of radiological understanding the dynamics of model, supported by site doses to humans from marine radionuclide concentrations in monitoring, for assessing exposure pathways. the marine environment in radionuclide dispersal in the These issues were also relation to input sources and to Lithuanian part of the Baltic evaluated in great detail key oceanographic processes Sea, the tributary waters of the through the European specific to that area of the Baltic. Nemunas and the Commission’s MARINA The final goals were the Curonian . The project BALT project (1996-98). It optimization of the monitoring has a strong government focused on estimating the programme and the commitment and has been radiological exposure of the development of a reliable population of the European predictive capacity based on Photo: View of the Klaipeda Strait, Community to radioactivity validated models. This involved connecting the Curronian Lagoon and in the Baltic Sea. development and the Baltic Sea. (Credit: Valkunas/Lithuania) IAEA BULLETIN, 43/2/2001 declared as a national TRACKING RIVER FLOWS priority for IAEA TO THE BALTIC SEA assistance in the framework of the 2001-02 The sequence of plots illustrates the model-simulated time evolution of technical cooperation concentrations of a conservative tracer released continuously at a programme. constant rate at the mouths of the Nemunas River, which is of special The project is well interest in studies of transboundary pollution affecting the Baltic Sea. coordinated with other The numerical experiment was conducted over the period from 1 April national and international to 1 June 1999. The dated “snap shots” show the tracer’s path and programmes on the Baltic indicate the direction and speed of current. (Credit: L. Davuliene) Sea. Work is carried out in collaboration with four Lithuanian institutions: the Institute of Physics, the Vilnius Technical University, laboratories of the Ministry of Environment and the Institute of Geography. In addition, the project involves staff from the Radiation Protection Centre of Lithuania’s Ministry of Health. The counterparts 14 collaborated with the IAEA to design the project and to define the work plan. Since the project’s initiation, advice has been provided through expert missions involving specialists from the Risø National Laboratory (Denmark) and the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency - FMHA (Germany). These institutes, with long- standing involvement in Baltic radioactivity studies and the MORS programme, have also hosted eight fellowships and scientific visits of Lithuanian scientists. Training mainly targeted enhancement of radioanalytical and modelling skills. The subject of management for IAEA BULLETIN, 43/2/2001 quality assurance in environmental applications of been of interest. The fresh- Project plans and results were nuclear analytical techniques saline water mixing zone in the presented at MORS and was also addressed through an area of the Curronian Lagoon HIROMB (High Resolution IAEA training course hosted by is host to a series of Operational Model for the the Centre for Advanced transformations for the Baltic Sea) groups meetings. Technological and contaminants entering the They receive much interest Environmental Training in Baltic Sea. In conjunction with from the Lithuanian Karlsruhe, Germany. The hydrological, hydrochemical authorities as well, in view of project implementation has and geochemical the potential multiple been further supported measurements, data on applications of a predictive through provision of sampling environmental radionuclides model for dispersal of and radiometric equipment can be used to trace these pollutants. and assistance for organization processes and to verify or Work is continuing through of scientific cruises. validate transport and transfer further development of the During the project’s first models. circulation model and phase, a detailed study of the Two sampling cruises and expansion of the area of study impact of the Nemunas River several field campaigns in the to include one more major on the Lithuanian part of the coastal and the river inflow (the Daugava) and Baltic Sea was initiated. The Curronian Lagoon were carried the atmospheric input. The Nemunas is the third largest out in collaboration by the IAEA project’s second phase tributary river, flowing into the Lithuanian institutes involved targets interrelated topics. Baltic Sea through the in the Model Project. Water They include the investigation Curronian Lagoon and the and sediment samples were of the Nemunas River mouths, Klaipeda Strait. (See photo.) collected and returned to the the fan offshore Klaipeda This river is of particular laboratories for analytical Strait, the shallow waters of the interest for Lithuania in the work. Sampling, sample Curronian lagoon, the context of assessing processing and radioanalytical development of skills to 15 transboundary pollution, as the methods were subject to analyze additional river’s upper reaches and evaluation and harmonization. radionuclides, the development almost 60% of its catchment Intercomparisons were carried of a dispersion model, area lie outside its territory. It out between the institutes to simulations for dispersal of is equally of a wider interest for assure the comparability of the caesium-137 and strontium- the Baltic countries, since over final data. 90, and assessment of doses. 45% of the river’s catchment Starting from the FMHA Through the evaluation of area lie outside the HELCOM basin-scale operational radionuclide dispersal and zone, and therefore are not circulation model, a high- transfer and the development subject to the Commission’s resolution (one nautical mile of prognostic models for environmental policy. grid size) model was developed normal and accident Many polluting industries for the Lithuanian part of the conditions, it is expected that were developed in the basin Baltic Sea and the Curronian this project will contribute to a (food processing, textile and Lagoon. The model was comprehensive assessment of tannery, oil refineries, chemical subjected to sensitivity studies, the Baltic Sea environment. By plants, pulp and paper mills) tested in diagnostic mode with supporting ongoing national and concern is related to real input data and verified and international programmes, wastewater treatment facilities using measurement results it is further expected that the and to discharges of industrial corresponding to the respective project will yield reliable data load to municipal sewage periods of time. Various and information that can systems. scenarios were simulated for contribute to a sound basis for Since the river drains the input of a conservative tracer Baltic Sea environmental run-off coming from Belarus, through the Nemunas River management decisions in the inflow of fallout and its dispersion over periods Lithuania, promoting radionuclides from the of several months was studied. environmental quality, health Chernobyl accident also has (See graphs, page 14.) and safety in the region. ❐ IAEA BULLETIN, 43/2/2001