(In Finnish: Maankäyttö ja vesitalouden hallinta muuttuvassa ympäristössä)
Already a traditional seminar, held in every second year, was this time organized as a webinar. This was the fourth time Drainage Foundation sr, Maa- ja vesitekniikan tuki ry, BSAG and Finnish Field Drainage Association invited speakers to talk to and discuss with stakeholder groups. Previous seminars were focusing on agricultural water management and climate change, but this time other land use areas were recognized already in the event name. It is an aim to consider agricultural and forest water management together rather than individuals. Same methods can be applied in both areas and in hybrid areas that contain forest and agriculture.
This seminar was organized as a webinar due to the corona situation. However, this enabled larger audience group to follow the webinar. Over 400 people registered beforehand and the webinar was attended by 200-300 listeners at the same time.
A wide range of experts and researchers from different fields were invited to speak at the seminar. After the opening words by Gustav Rehnberg, Elsi Katainen spoke about the new directions and future decisions of the EU’s agricultural and forestry policy in relation to carbon sinks and changes in subsidies. Research professor Heikki Lehtonen (Natural Resources Institute Finland) continued the seminar by talking about the future of Finnish agriculture, how agricultural practices could develop in the future, in order to meet the current environmental emission targets. This was followed by a farmer-oriented speech by Jyrki Wallin, new Executive Director of MTK (Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners). The presentation demonstrated interesting results from a survey that showed farmers ’views on many important topics, such as climate change.
Before the lunch break, Ville Keskisarja presented the new strategy for agriculture and forestry water management and Eliisa Malin gave inspiration for land owners to start applying light methods for improving soil wellbeing and conditions for better crop growth.
After the break, the seminar continued with agricultural nutrient loads. Sirkka Tattari from Finnish Environmeltal Institute spoke about monitoring nutrient loads and how the loads have been developing so far. Hannu Marttila continued with peatland water management and described their current study in Oulu University. A new experimental field had been implemented in Ruukki and there will be both monitoring and modelling to study peatland water management in different conditions. Throughout the day, there had been information on controlled drainage method and now Heidi Salo explained the benefits of controlled drainage in future climate conditions. Heidi is working in Aalto University Water Resources Management and Environmental Hydraulics research team. The last presentation was about forests, when Paavo Ojanen from the University of Helsinki spoke about the environmental effects of forest drainage.
The webinar can be viewed as a recording: https://youtu.be/moNEyGvEKo0
There will be a theme number 1/2021 of the Vesitalous magazine “Land use and water management in a changing environment”. The magazine will be published in early 2021 in January-February.
