Latvia

Rivers in Jelgava Local Municipality are under stress, affected by high nutrient loadings and eutrophication which causes rivers’ overgrowth. Within the WATERDRIVE project Jelgava Local Municipality as local authority wanted to rise awareness on condition of the rivers and the need of river cleaning. Svete river is a Public river. It is a tributary of the left bank of the Lielupe river – the biggest river in Jelgava Local Municipality. The total length of Svete river is 123 km, of which 75 km are in the territory of Latvia and 65,4 km in Jelgava Local Municipality. It flows mostly through agricultural lands of Zemgale region plain. Leaching of nutrients from agricultural lands contributes to the growth of aquatic plants, the management on floodplain meadows is insufficient, biomass accumulation in the river bed results in disturbed natural river flow. Also the natural processes of rivers are additionally influenced by relatively warm winters due to climate change, which do not form a thick layer of ice that is able to naturally clean the river bed and shoreline during spring floods.

Conclusions and findings

In the Svete River catchment the local “test catchment officers” has focus on teroretical implementation of wetlands restauration, two stage ditches, phosphorus dams, constructed wetlands and intelligent buffer-zones. Estimation of costs is a real challenge without scientific tests sites with all these new measures and no agricultural schemes to support implementation of new agri-environmental measures.

• Implementationplan in Svete River (PPT presenting the implementation plan for Svete River)
• First focus group meeting Latvia 14.05.19 (Report from first planning meeting with stakeholders)
• Report on reed removal in Swete River.
• Midterm case area Latvia (Project mid-term report)
• Video: Examples of Good Practice in Managing the Shorelines of Water Bodies. Svēte river example