Action for the Reinforcement of the Transitional Waters' Environmental Integrity

About the Project

Project background and aims

Transitional waters (TW) link adjacent river basins and marine areas and are critically important for the ecological health of the Baltic Sea.

The European Water Policy and the EU Water Framework Directive set the guidelines for managing river basins, while marine areas are managed within the EU Maritime Spatial Planning framework. ARTWEI aims to strike an operational balance between EU requirements for Maritime Spatial Planning framework, Water Framework Directive and Integrated Coastal Zone Management, which do often overlap or contradict each other. This aim will be achieved by establishing the South Baltic Transitional Waters’ partnership network of the key institutions based on the long-term cooperation agreement and supported by the regional activity network of EUCC – The Coastal and Marine Union. Thus, the cross-border cooperation of local and regional interest groups, citizens and politicians is crucial.

ARTWEI project is based on existing experiences from the EU and international Baltic Sea cooperation networks within development of local and regional methods for effective management of TWs from two perspectives:

  1. cross border cooperation
  2. environmental integrity of river basins –TWs – open sea.

4 Transitional Waters

ARTWEI project has four cross-border Transitional Waters regions of the South Baltic Area as target areas:

Baltic_sea_lagoons

Durable reinforcement

Concrete conclusions and recommendations for the durable reinforcement of the environmental integrity of the Transitional waters are developed in the form of a Good Practice Code of Conduct. A web-based multilingual platform, including webGIS and other ICT tools, created facilitating an interactive knowledge exchange within and among Transitional Waters Stakeholder Bodies. Environmental education is an additional tool implemented in the form of a transboundary coastal dialogue, a photo competition and a public information system.

ARTWEI project is part of the South Baltic Programme 2007 – 2013. The lead partner is the Klaipėda University and the partnership comprises other five partners from Lithuania, Germany, Poland and Sweden.

Project duration: March 2010 – June 2013.