KA10020 PeatStop - Sustainable runoff water management in Karelia and Kainuu

The project PeatStop brings possibilities for renewing runoff water management solutions in Karelia CBC programme area. During the project, the environmental loads caused by runoff water are monitored and physical filtering installations will be implemented respectively in the city of Kajaani. More specifically, PeatStop aims at the development of transboundary solutions to improve the condition of urban water bodies through the introduction of effective monitoring and the use of new environmentally safe runoff water filtering solutions. Project participants have strong background expertise for water purification solutions.

In Kajaani, the main interest is to mitigate further eutrophication of a pond Kaupunginlampi, the pond located in a very popular recreational area near the city center. It has been suffering from eutrophication and traces or pollution, mainly due to the ingress of surface rainfall and runoff water outlets into it, washing away pollution from the surface of the city and roads. The number of other types of contamination caused by runoff water is not solely understood at the moment, which underlines the need for actual contaminant level monitoring. The runoff water management pilot will help the aquatic environment in target area to recover, which gives a good reference for future planning in similar targets. City of Kajaani is planning to invest in other pond recovery activities responding to urgent needs and the proposed project supports these activities by providing solutions to cut the further load caused by runoff water. 

Prior to March 2022, Russian Karelia was also a part of the project activities area. In Petrozavodsk, the main interest was to prevent oil leakages in lake Onega in order to ensure the natural water quality in the recreational beach area and to prevent possible oil contamination near drinking water intake area. Due to Russia's invasion and war in Ukraine, the activities and all organizational cooperation with Russian project partners were halted.

The long-term maintenance procedure and responsibilities for the pilot sites are defined as a part of the project, since very often the lack of understanding for maintenance needs decreases the capacity in the long run. Disseminating the experience and results of these pilots supports the initiation of similar development and investments in cities throughout the Karelia CBC area.

In the pilot cases the references from the water quality monitoring solutions give a valuable, practical expertise and experiences on the available monitoring solutions, which could be utilized and adapted in various cases to manage the environmental load in urban and industrial areas.