WSSP – WaterShed Safety Plan for controlling diffuse pollution

The project will develop an operational model that helps to reduce pollution of the Baltic Sea. The Baltic Sea and its surrounding areas are exposed to pollution from rural and urban catchment areas. The pollution often contains nutrient inflows, hazardous substances, and pathogens. Whereas point pollution sources are often easy to identify and address, diffuse pollution is less obvious and therefore harder to identify and mitigate. The WaterShed Safety Plan for controlling diffuse pollution (WSSP) project will pilot the Watershed Safety Plan (WSSP) operational model in the Central Baltic area. The model will enable municipalities, water utilities, and similar actors to reduce the amount of diffuse pollution from reaching the Baltic Sea. HAMK has developed and piloted the model in Finland in a previous project. The WSSP operational model will be piloted in densely built areas as well as sparsely populated agricultural and forestry areas in Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Sweden. The WSSP project aims to develop a generally applicable watershed-based operational model for water management. By improving water quality, it will improve the wellbeing of people and the state of the Central Baltic.