DESCRIPTION OF ACTION
Despite extensive measures, nutrient loading from agriculture on water bodies has only slightly reduced. There is an evident need for cost-effective methods to reduce loading that can be applied in practice to sufficiently large areas. The local objectives of the project are to reduce phosphorus loading from agriculture on the very eutrophicated lake Pakkalanjärvi by treating fields with structure lime and to study the structure lime treatment method in silty and sandy clay soils.
The project found that turbidity in field ditches was very low and that the structure lime treatment did not seem to reduce turbidity. Ditch waters contained high levels of dissolved phosphorus, most likely due to high concentrations of easily soluble phosphorus in the soil of the fields. According to the results of the project, the concentration of dissolved phosphorus seemed to have reduced somewhat after the structure lime treatment, but the result was uncertain due to factors such as the small number of concentration observations and high variations.
SCHEDULE
2017–2019, completed
FINANCIAL INSTRUMENT AND FUNDING
Funding from the programme to promote the recycling of nutrients (Raki), Ministry of the Environment
EUR 128,000 (Ministry of the Environment: EUR 78,860)
MAIN IMPLEMENTING PARTY AND CONTACT
Finnish Environment Institute and Pakkalanjärven vesiensuojeluyhdistys (Lake Pakkalanjärvi Water Protection Association)