WAMBAF | Water Management in Baltic Forests

WAMBAF | Water Management in Baltic Forests

EN
[PL] Gospodarowanie wodą w lasach nadbałtyckich
The aim of the WAMBAF and WAMBAF ToolBox projects was to determine the methods and tools of water management in forests, which would influence the quality of water flowing into the Balitc Sea.
Wet Area Map (in dark blue: areas with occurence of groundwater ranging from 0 to 0.5 m)

The scope of the projects included issues related to:

  • operation and maintenance of drainage equipment,
  • the beaver's impact on water quality,
  • forest management in the vicinity of surface waters,
  • modern tools supporting water management in forests.

Among the main practical results of the projects there are: 

- Mobile apps:

  • WAMBAF (available on Android and iOS), developed to support the ditch inventorying and ditch management in forests. Application is connected to the GIS system available on: http://www.wambaf.com/?page_id=154&lang=en,
  • Blue Targeting (available on Android and iOS), a forestry planning tool which helps you design a riparian forest buffer. The aim is to protect water quality and biodiversity by proposing the right measure, at the right place, to the right extent.

- Wet Area Maps – available for Sweden, Poland, Finland and Latvia, based on airborne laser scanning data. Maps illustrate the occurence of groundwater and may be used in the planning of wood harvesting operations.

- Developing the algorithm for drainage ditches detection basing on airborne laser scanning data. It will be published as open source in 2022.

In the projects several Good Practice Manuals have been developed, regarding: water management in riparian forests, structures for water retention in forests and beaver population management. The manuals are available in several language versions. Main target groups were: forest managers, harvesting machines' operators, land owners, hunters and nature conservation units. The coordinator of the projects was Swedish Forest Agency (Skogsstyrelsen).

 

Domain
Forest management, ecosystem, resilience
Keywords
water management; riparian forests; beavers; drainage ditches
Challenge addressed
1.- Improve forest resilience and adaption to climate change
Type of solution
Advice and services for forest owners
Digital solution
Yes
Innovation
Yes
Country of origin
Finland
Latvia
Lithuania
Poland
Russia
Sweden
Scale of application
Cross-border/multi-lateral (several countries)
Start and end year
2016 - 2019
Contact data
Owner or author
Instytut Badawczy Leśnictwa
Mariusz Ciesielski
Reporter
Łukasiewicz Research Network - Wood Technology Institute (ITD)
Dobrochna Augustyniak-Wysocka
References and Resources
Project reference
Water Management in Baltic Forests, projekt co-financed by European regional Development Fund, Interreg Baltic Sea Region
Resources
Good practices for management of beavers and beaver ponds in the Baltic Sea Region
Manual for constructing water protection structures at ditch network maintenance sites and for water retention in forests
Project under which this factsheet has been created
Rosewood 4.0