Sus­tain­able Growth in North­ern Ostro­both­nia – Green Tran­si­tion Mon­i­tor­ing Sys­tem

The project aims to estab­lish a region­al sys­tem to track the envi­ron­men­tal impacts of sus­tain­able growth in North­ern Ostro­both­nia, focus­ing on cli­mate and water bod­ies (both inland and coastal areas). The sys­tem will mon­i­tor region­al green­house gas (GHG) emis­sions and sinks, riv­er water qual­i­ty, autonomous coastal water qual­i­ty, and peat­land use changes. This ver­i­fi­ca­tion net­work will help man­age emis­sions, sinks, and water pol­lu­tion while guid­ing land-use mea­sures to sup­port cli­mate, land-use, and water man­age­ment plans.

Cur­rent­ly, the region lacks a suf­fi­cient mon­i­tor­ing net­work for assess­ing the local envi­ron­men­tal effects of the green tran­si­tion. Gaps exist in GHG mea­sure­ments, riv­er mon­i­tor­ing (espe­cial­ly in peat­land runoff areas), coastal and marine track­ing, and assess­ing the ecosys­tem-lev­el effects of peat­land restora­tion. There are also defi­cien­cies in mon­i­tor­ing nat­ur­al ref­er­ence areas and peat­land agri­cul­ture.

The project’s short-term goal is to build and devel­op cli­mate and water impact mon­i­tor­ing infra­struc­ture. In the long term, it aims to enhance envi­ron­men­tal mon­i­tor­ing, devel­op region­al mea­sure­ment tech­nolo­gies, and cre­ate busi­ness and edu­ca­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties. The ini­tia­tive is close­ly linked to nation­al and inter­na­tion­al net­works.

By using the lat­est tech­nolo­gies for water qual­i­ty and GHG mon­i­tor­ing, the project offers new busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties for local com­pa­nies in water man­age­ment ser­vices. Ulti­mate­ly, the goal is to estab­lish a long-term region­al envi­ron­men­tal mon­i­tor­ing ecosys­tem, fos­ter­ing local and region­al col­lab­o­ra­tion for a sus­tain­able and healthy envi­ron­ment.

The project is co-fund­ed by the Euro­pean Union.