Modelling the reduction requirements for substance emissions in catchments to achieve the good environmental status in accordance with the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MEER)
- contact:
- funding:
Umweltbundesamt
- startdate:
06/2025
- enddate:
11/2027
Short description
The project aims to derive the reduction requirements for phosphorus and selected pollutants in inland catchment areas so that the designated target values for the good environmental status of marine waters (North Sea and Baltic Sea) can be achieved at the limnic-marine border. This includes a comparison of the maximum permissible substance loads with the current loads transported via the rivers into the seas and the derivation of the reduction requirements still required inland. The relevant emission pathways for the substances in question are to be identified and mitigation measures and their efficiency are to be demonstrated.
The model MoRE (Modelling of Regionalized Emissions) will be used for project implementation. MoRE can be used to identify the most important pathways for substance emissions into water bodies and to estimate the efficiency of measures for emission reduction. Substance inputs and pollution in water bodies are largely dependent on the water balance, as water controls the transport, transfer and degradation processes. The basis for the identification of these substance emissions is therefore a description of the water balance and the individual runoff components that is as close to reality as possible. In order to realize this for MoRE, a coupling of the nationwide substance emission modelling with the water balance model LARSIM-ME (Large Area Runoff SImulation Model - Middle Europe) of the Federal Institute of Hydrology (BfG) was carried out. In future, LARSIM-ME is to be used for nationwide substance emission modelling and will be provided as the basis for MoRE modelling for a period of 10 years as part of this project. In addition, Germany-wide erosion modelling was further developed in a previous project for phosphorus emissions. These developments will be used in the course of this project and applied by coupling the soil erosion and sediment input calculation with the emission modelling by MoRE for the calculation of mitigation measures in the field of erosion control and their effectiveness.