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.