News » HELCOM manure nutrients and nutrient bookkeeping

HELCOM, the Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission - HelsinkiCommission, is working on coordinating different national standards onmanure nutrient content and on farm nutrient bookkeeping. Workshops onthe two questions collated information on implementation of these twoquestions in the nine contracting countries. Farm nutrient bookkeeping(calculating nutrient inputs and offtakes) is obligatory only inDenmark, and in some cases in Sweden and Poland, despite its value indefining fertiliser planning. Obstacles to implementation include bothabsence of legal framework and inadequate data and uncertaintiesregarding standard values for nutrient contents of manures, crop uptake,nitrogen fixation and denitrification. Priority actions includedevelopment of data and of a shared methodology across the BalticRegion. The workshop on manure showed that methods of estimatingnutrient content in manures were highly variable between differentcountries, and are based on varying assumptions and models. Again, theneed to establish coherent calculation methods across the Baltic Regionwas identified.

?HELCOM Workshop on manure nutrient content in the Baltic Sea countries? 19-20 November 2015, Vantaa, Finland, http://helcom.fi/helcom-at-work/events/events-2015/workshop-on-manure-nutrient-content-in-the-baltic-sea-countries and ?HELCOM Workshop on status of nutrient bookkeeping in the Baltic Sea countries? 28-29 April 2015, Oldenburg, Germany http://helcom.fi/helcom-at-work/events/events-2015/workshop-on-status-of-nutrient-bookkeeping