The Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry have not, through steering, sufficiently ensured the effectiveness of the state financing aimed at reducing nutrient loading from agriculture. The ministries should define load reduction targets clearly and in a well-reasoned manner, allocate financing to the most cost-effective measures and sites and produce systematic information on the impacts of the financing.
Under the Act on the Organisation of River Basin Management and the Marine Strategy, the general objective of the organisation of the management of water resources and marine environments is to protect, improve and restore water resources and the Baltic Sea so that the status of surface waters and groundwater or the Baltic Sea does not deteriorate and is at least good. The most important problem in Finnish water bodies and marine areas is eutrophication caused by nutrient loading, and a major part of the nutrient loading comes from agriculture.
The audit examined whether the central government, through the river basin management plans and the marine strategy, has provided good prerequisites for the reduction of nutrient loading from agriculture in an economic, efficient and effective manner. In addition, it was examined whether the programmes for financing the management of water resources and marine environments have succeeded in solving challenges in the reduction of nutrient loading from agriculture and whether the monitoring and assessment of and reporting and communication on the water resource and marine environment management have produced sufficient high-quality information on the effectiveness of the activities.
The eutrophication of water bodies and marine areas causes significant environmental damage as well as financial losses and costs to the central government. It is difficult to estimate the total of state funds used for the management of water resources and marine environments, as the financing is not planned and monitored as a whole. When the Government approves the river basin management plans and the marine strategy it does not allocate financing for their implementation. Decisions on the financing are made separately in the state budget process and in the planning of several separate financing programmes. It is unclear to what extent the river basin management plans and the marine strategy influence the financing.
The vast majority of the financing of the management of water resources and marine environments has consisted of the environmental compensations for agriculture, managed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. In 2015–2022, around EUR 220 million were used annually on average for compensations related to the management of water resources and marine environments, and in 2023–2027, around EUR 150 million are planned to be used for them annually. Financing has also been granted over the last ten years from the experimental programme for nutrient recycling of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the water protection enhancement programme of the Ministry of the Environment and the programme of the Ministry of the Environment to promote nutrient recycling and improve the status of the Archipelago Sea.
Despite extensive financing, a good status of water bodies and marine areas has not been achieved, and the nutrient loading from agriculture has not significantly decreased over the past 30 years.
No clear targets have been set for reducing nutrient loading from agriculture in the planning of the management of water resources and marine environments and the related financing programmes. For this reason, it is not possible to assess in any greater detail whether the targets have been achieved. The new environmental targets set for 2024–2030 for the management of marine environments also include targets for agriculture. Even if the proposed targets were met, they are not sufficient to achieve a good status of coastal waters, at least in the next 30 years.
Based on the audit, overall cost-effectiveness from the perspective of central government finances has not had a clear role in the selection, planning and monitoring of the measures taken for water resource and marine environment management. Since the same measures aim to promote many objectives, the transparency of decision-making would require systematic assessment of alternative measures and open justification of the choices made in the light of the different objectives, including the cost-effectiveness of water protection. From the perspective of the reduction of nutrient loading, the most important measures are those that reduce unnecessary fertilisation, prevent the migration of nutrients from fields to water bodies most efficiently and promote the transfer of manure nutrients from surplus areas to the areas that need them in an economically and environmentally sustainable manner.
The use of phosphorus in arable land still exceeds the needs of crops in many places, especially due to manure accumulation in areas with a high concentration of livestock farming. The fertilisation restrictions defined in the Phosphorus Decree, which entered into force in 2023, still partly exceed the needs of crops, and the manure derogation contained in it allows overfertilisation with manure nutrients.
The ministries have not provided comprehensive and systematic monitoring information on the effectiveness of the management of water resources and marine environments and the related financing programmes. It is therefore difficult for public administration to inform Parliament and the citizens comprehensively and convincingly about it. Attention should be paid to remedying this for example in the ongoing overall reform of information management in the water resource and marine environment management.
