As climate change accelerates, Southwest Finland is one of the 8 Associated Regions to have joined SpongeWorks aiming to learn and share best practices for catchment-scale water management, especially in a Finnish context, where efforts are often decentralized and rely heavily on voluntary cooperation.
We spoke with Katariina Yli-Heikkilä, environmental specialist at the Regional Council of Southwest Finland, to understand what this means for the region.
What sparked your project?
In one of Finland’s most densely populated regions, where agriculture dominates the landscape, the impacts of land use are becoming increasingly visible, and urgent.
Every year, algae blooms disrupt the Archipelago Sea and broader Baltic Sea, threatening not just marine ecosystems, but also fishing livelihoods, tourism, and local economies. These blooms are a direct consequence of nutrient runoff, a key driver of eutrophication, which also contributes to increased greenhouse gas emissions from coastal areas.
As climate pressures mount, we decided that we had to join an international community of experts in our efforts towards climate resilience and further explore our options for integrated land and water management, and Nature-based Solutions that protect both people and planet.
What inspired “Sponge Enough?” to join SpongeWorks?
For us, joining SpongeWorks is a unique opportunity to learn how other SpongeWorks countries are tackling river basin challenges, what innovative methods could strengthen our own strategies and where does the Archipelago Sea stand today and how we can build a more climate-resilient ecosystem and community.
As we move toward implementing the EU Nature Restoration Law, now is the time to bring sponge measures into focus — placing landowners and local stakeholders at the center of the conversation.
Our region sits in the boreal heart of Europe with rather distinct climate and biophysical, compared to the rest of Europe. We are thus bringing a