The last day of 2023 is officially the last day of LIFE-Goodstream. Our last activities was two end conferences. One for landowners the 9th of December where 40 landowners attended to hear about the results from the project, and a second one the 14-15 of December for other LIFE-projects, researchers, advisorso and civil servants, were also around 40 persons (from five countries) attended. It was two very good meetings. Thank you all participants!
In connection to our paper on a new method to monitor submerged macrophytes in constructed wetlands, we also did a short film to illustrate the method, as a complement to the paper. It can be seen here (clickable link)
This week we have had visits from the Centre for Genetic Identification (CGI) at the Museum of Natural History in Stockholm (Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet). We have commissioned them to sample 30 wetlands, IBZs and amphibian ponds to investigate the occurence of different fish species, by using the method of eDNA.
We have published our method of using a stand-up padle (SUP) to monitor submerged macrophytes in cosntructed wetlands. It is pulished in ”Svensk Botanisk Tidskrift” and can be uploaded by clicking on this LINK
This week, Volker Bruchert and his students from Stockholm University (Dep. of Geological scienses) visited us to discuss LIFE-Goodstream and to sample greenhose gases in some of our project wetlands and in the stream.
Sofia Hedman will do her Masters thesis (at Umeå University), partly in our Goodstream measures. A large number of specially developed ”camera traps” will be used to investigate populations and individual movemenet patterns of Mustelids (polecat, mink, otter etc). In total 47 cameras are deployed in 4 catchment areas and several of the them (17) will be located along Trönningeån. The picture shows one of the camera traps.
The surveys on dragonflies we have done in the LIFE-Goodstream measures (wetlands, IBZs and amphibian ponds) have been compliled inte a short guidebook for the public and for the landowners. The aim is to raise awareness of wetlands and their biodiversity by focusing on dragonflies which are relativiely easy to study. The guidebook (80 pages) show all species recorded in Halmstad, and give help on how to stydy dragonflies and include maps to 12 different sites that are good for ”dragonly hunting”. It can also be downloaded as pdf: Trollsländor i Halmstads kommun
Now we have done the last finishing touch on the walking path with the addition of nest boxes, benches and several information signs explaining the species that can be seen, and the nature and environment of the stream.
The 19th of May we had a grand opening of the walking path in Trönninge with > 200 persons attending from the village and surrounding areas .
Benches are now in place and Sofia and Lisa have selected sites for the information signs and the creotopes that will be deployd soon.
During the situation with very high water levels the last week we did ”high flow data collection” in the stream. The data will be used to calculate transport of nutrients in the stream at different water levels.
We are co-authors on a paper on multifunctionality and trade offs in constructed wetlands. Our experiences from LIFE-Goodstream have been useful in writing the paper. You can download the paper here.
Now we have done all surveys in the Goodstream wetlands, IBZs and amphibian ponds regarding submerseed macrophytes. The method (Stand up paddle with GIS-transects) and results will be published in ”Svensk Botanisk Tidskrift” (the Swedish Botanical Journal).
The walking path along the stream in the village of Trönninge is now done. We have already seen lots of people using it, which is great! The remaining work for us now is to deploy benches and information signs along the path. We will also put up several nest boxes in the trees, for birds, bats and solitary bees.
Today an article was published in ”Yrfän” (the Swedish Entomological Societies magazine) on how LIFE-Goodstream has positively affected the dragonfly poplations in the region. The article can be found here (it is in Swedish): Wetlands as species islands for dragonflies
LIFE-Goodstream was also presented (online presentation) at the 36th SIL Conference in Berlin, the 8-10 of August.
Resluts from the dragonfly surveys of LIFE-Goodstream were presented at ECOO (European Congress on Odonata) in Slovenia the 26-30 of June
The 14-15 of June we had a visit by our Monitor, Inta Duce and our Project Manager at CINEA, Mrs Malgorzata Piecha. A very good 2-day meeting where we discussed the project and visited several of our project sites.
Today we arranged a ”bioblitz” and open house in Stjärnarp where we tried to find as many species as possible and also showed families and children the life in a wetland. A very nice day with ca 35 persons looking for species and/or tested netting for invertebrates in the wetland Läs mer
At the moment two different Thesis studies by students from Halmstad University are in progress in LIFE-Goodstream.
This week, Sofia and Sam together with representatives from the municipality marked the actual location in detail for the walking path. Construction work will start later in summer.
Today the graduate class of 1992 for ”Agricultural technicians” at the Swedsih University of Agricultural Sciences had a reunion meeting located at our offices. 60 persons attended and got a presentation of LIFE-Goodstream at our ”nest box wall”
Today we presented LIFE-Goodstream at the public event ”Fylleå River day”. Ca 230 persons got to see our films from the wild life cameras and other information about the project. We also handed out safety vests and seat pads with the Goodstream/EU logos, which were very popular.
The paper from our surveys of insects and spiders in wetland flood zones is now published. The publication is a joint scientific paper from LIFE-Goodstream and our networking project ”Wetlands as Buffers”. The title is: Insects and spiders in constructed wetlands: interesting findings from a systematic survey in Uppland and southern Halland, and is published in Entomologisk Tidskrift 143 (1–2): 47–66. It is in Swedish but with English abstract and figure texts. It can be viewed and downloaded here: Insects and spiders in constructed wetlands
Last week, we arranged a 2-day meeting with allmost all of Sweden´s wetland researchers, several wetland administrators at the County Boards, and a delegation from the Swedish EPA Läs mer
We have now investigated if our measures in LIFE-Goodstream might have an impact in the Swedish Species Observation System ”Artportalen”. Our intern, Kalle Ström Töttrup, have made som searches on reported species from the draianage area for the years 2014 – 2021. It is interesting to see that it seems as species numbers increase from 2016 when we started our measures (constructed wetlands and other biotopes). Of course it can be other reasons for the increased reporting of species, but it is at least some indication that our measures have been good for the biodiversity in the drainage area.
During the weekend the 29-30 of January the storm Malik hit the westcoast of Sweden. Thanks to our networking project ”Wetlands as buffers” where we have water level meters located in 11 streams, we could follow the effect the storm had on the water level in the LIFE-Goodstream stream Trönningeån, hour for hour. The data shows that between 02.00 and 21.30 the 29th of January the water level increased with 1.37 m! This is beacuse the wind presses the water up in the stream channel.
This week, Sam and our intern from Halmstad University (Kalle) have done the final data collection from the 275 artificial bee nest boxes we have placed in the drainage area. Ca 13 000 nesting holes have been measured!
Finally the work with constructing the Urban Stormwater pond has started. Today we had a field meeting at the site with the project leader and the landscape architect from the municipality of Halmstad. We also started the planning of the walking path along the stream in the village.
Today we started the new long-term monitoring program that will continue with bi-weekly sampling until at least October 2022. Läs mer
We did a presentation titled ”LIFE or death” at the LIFE-Connetc conference in Lund the 23-24 November.
We participated at a conference organised by Stockholm University on multi-functionality of wetlands. Afterwords we attended a very good 2-day workshop on the topic together with ca 20 wetland researches, to discuss and plan a joint scientific publication. Very valuable and interesting events where we got much inspiration and also got to disseminate our result and experiences from LIFE-Goodstream.
The Swedish EPA have arranged a series of 7 webinars on wetlands during. We have participated in three of them with LIFE-Goodstream results. It was the webinars on Recreation, Nutrient retention and Biodiversity. All the webinars can be viewed at EPAs home page: https://www.naturvardsverket.se/amnesomraden/vatmark/webbinarier-om-vatmark
Last weekend we had a day with demonstrations of the measures done i LIFE-Goodstream at Stjärnarp. It was a very good day! > 50 landowners visited us and were shown electro-fishing in the stream, videos on all the mammals from our wildlife cameras, our work with pollinators and invertebrates in the wetland among many other things.
Lars-Christer Jageland has spotted 9 Great egrets (Ardea alba) in the LIFE-Goodstream wetland in Stjärnarp. It is a naturally expanding species that has started to breed in Sweden during the last years, hopefully a colony wll establish in Stjärnarp! Läs mer
Kom och håva efter småkryp i våtmarken, lär dig om pollinerande bin och humlor, se vad vi får för fångst i elfisket i bäcken, se våra filmer från viltkameror på utter, mård, grävling, räv och mycket mer. Ta med barn och barnbarn! Vi bjuder på mat och fika. Anmäl er till John.strand@hushallningssallskapet.se eller 070-8438218 För vägbeskrivning och mer information se länken: Våtmarksdag i Stjärnarp
Here is a clip from a Goodstream wetland, showing Sofia paddling with the sonar after the SUP and Lea measuring the shoreline with GPS. This is also part of our networking project ”Welands as Buffers”. Click on the link to se the clip: Bathymetry measurments
Our wildlife cameras continue to deliver. We have now recorded 12 species of mammals in LIFE-Goodstream. The picture is compliled of stills lifted from some of the film clips, and show six of them; Otter (Lutra lutra), Red fox (Vulpes vulpes), Pine marten (Martes martes), Wild boar (Sus scrofa), Fallow deer (Dama dama) and Badger, (Meles meles). In addition to the mammals, we also get data on birds seldom seen such as the Water rail (Rallus aquaticus). We are now compiling the film data and will upload separate video clips for each species later in autumn.
We have now received a decision from EU (the CINEA LIFE unit) that our request for a prolongation of the project and a new focus on urban and industry areas, has been granted. The project will now run until 2022-12-31 and we will start to work more in the Trönninge village to combat the eutrophication of the stream. This is in accordance with our results that show that the agricultural parts of the stream now reach good ecological status regarding nutrients, but that urban parts of the stream still is moderate status only. Very good news!
We distributed a special seed mix with flowering species especially good for pollinators to the landowners, and now the landscape in LIFE-Goodstream is really flowering. This will benefit the pollinator species in the area. Below are some photos on how the landowners have sown the flower seeds, sometimes in strips along roads or around fields and somtimes in full flowering meadows.
Today the newspaper Hallandsposten published news about the investigation done by the municipality on which company in the Kistinge industry area that bears responsibility for the PFAS contamination. Our work in LIFE-Goodstream was again mentioned and the picture of Sofia and Björn sampling was used.
Yesterday we started a new study on the effects of PFAS on pollinators.
We have started a new study on how polinators perform in the LIFE-Goodstream area (Kistingebäcken industry area).
A professional film company (Heurgren Film AB) have spent two days following our work.
We have started to prepare for the survey of our pollinator investigation we have ongoing in 14 wetlands, where some are LIFE-Goodstream measures.
We have now developed a good method for measuring the wetlands bathymetry (topography of the wetlands).
Our monitoring of dragonflies (our indicator organism group) indicates that the constructed wetlands for nutrient retention also function very well to increase biodiversity in the agricultural landscape.
Today Klara Johansson presented and defended her M.Sc. thesis work at Halmstad University. She investigated knowledge and interest in biodiversity and conservation among sixth graders
We have done studies on invertebrates in the Trönninge ängar Nature reserve with short notice to evaluate an experiment in nature conservation
Our new wildlife camera started to deliver very nice images and films immediately.
We have started a new and interesting collaboration with Pablo Urrutia Cordero at Lund University, on effects of cyanobacteria and their toxins in constructed wetlands. Läs mer
We had a 2-day meeting with hydrology researchers from Stockholm University (Jerker Jarsjö and Imenne Åhlén), to decide methods to produce bathymetric maps of wetlands and to finalise strategy for flow measurements in the stream.
Our ongoing Goodstream survey on PFAS concentrations in Kistingebäcken has today been published in newspaper, radio and TV.
Today Lea Schneider was interviewed at one of our LIFE-Goodstream wetlands by regional Radio P4 regarding the Swedish environmental goals. Listen to the interview here: https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/7615482
Foto: Ann Jornéus, Sveriges Radio
Last week we hade a online meeting with researchers from the project WetKit (www.wetkit.weebly.com). The project is run by Martyn Futter et al., at SLU (the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences).
Johanna Ugander has now defended her thesis on the importance of submerged vegetation presence and species composition for the biodiversity and abundance of invertebrates. The studies were done in LIFE-Goodstream measures, and her work gave valuable data for the evaluation of our measures in the project. The thesis-report can be found under the tab Publications
Our work with schhols continue, and this week three different 8 grade classes from the school ”Kärlekens skola” have been visiting our sites during three half-days. We informed about the project and as part of their education they helped us monitor the numbers of invertebrates in the wetlands.
Further surveys by the County adminsitration and Halmstad municipality have revealed very high concentrations of PFAS. Analyses show 20 000 ng/l! The limit set by the SEPA is 90 ng/l!
During the summer we have published several reports with information on the project. It includes a report showing all measures that have been constucted in the project and reports on the effects on biodiversity of the measures The project has also been in various media, e.g. ”Radio P4 Halland” and different magazines. You can find the reports and media appearances under Dessimination/Publication. The photo shows a collection of ”dragonfly faces” from the surveys in the project.
Sara Bishoff from The Brandenburg University of Technology, Germany, did her bachelor thesis here in Halmstad in LIFE-Goodstream. She studied factors determining the abundance of dragonflies in LIFE-Goodstream measures.
Among other things she found that vegetations is a crucial factor for dragonfly abundance and that our small amphibian ponds are good habitats also for dragonflies. Her sampling of dragonfly larvae also generated a new project species; white-legged damselfly (Platycnemis pennipes), see photo of that species above. The thesis can be found under Publications.
The monitoring during 2019 and first half of 2020 indicates that our measures have been positive for the biodiversity. The species list increases continously, for the project in total and at the different constructed wetlands. The photo shows Brilliant emerald (Somatochlora metallica) a new species for LIFE-Goodstream during 2020. So far 30 species of dragonflies have been observed in LIFE-Goodstream measures which corresponds to 46 % of all dragonfly species observed in Sweden and 71 % of the species observed in the municipality of Halmstad.
During 2020, so far four new publications have been uploaded on the homepage. They consist of two abstract for international conferences in The Netherlands and Australia (cancelled or postponed due to Corona), one manual for construcion of our bee-boxes and one interim report on the biodiversity monitoring in LIFE-Goodstream.
They can all be found under the link: Dissemination/Publications
The 28 of April the Swedish EPA arranged a start-up meeting (via Skype due to Corona) for the 8 projects selected for the Wetland Ecosystem services call. We were granted one of the projects and will investigate how constructed wetlands in the agricultural landscapes function for water buffering and water storage. LIFE-Goodstream wetlands are an important part of the project.
During April we have continued with our work with the schools in the area. During several days we have shown different classes from ”Fyllingeskolan”, a local middle school, our work in LIFE-Goodstream.
We have know deployed 250 nestboxes for pollinators (solitary bees) along the stream Trönningeån. The main purpose is to increase the population of solitary bees in the project area, but at the same time we want to get more knowledge about which parameters are important for the different species. The photo show a few of the nest box packages we have deployed in the area during the last week. Each nest box consists of ca 30-50 holes (i.e. individual nests) so in total we have deployed ca 8 000 – 12 000 nests for the solitary bees in the LIFE-Goodstream area.
We had a 2-day meeting with Peter Hambäck and David Åhlen from Stockholm University to plan for co-operation on biodiversity monitoring in our joint projects. One of 25 Malaise traps (Slam traps) from Stockholm University were also assembled. They will be used in some of the LIFE-Goodstream wetlands to monitor flying insects.
We have now installed the first two water level sensors in two Goodstream wetlands. They will measure the water level once every hour for 2.5 years.
We have been granted a new project by the Swedish EPA where we will investigate how constructed wetlands function as buffers
The 11th of December we had a well-attended, combined LIFE-Goodstream/Formas-project meeting.
We arranged a worshop together with LEVA-Kattegatt where landowners could listen to presentations on our work to decrease eutrophication
One of the OCWs at Stjärnarp has had problems to reach maximum water levels and we had to bring out an excavator to investigate for leaks
EU in my region had a photo competition among LIFE projects and a photo from LIFE-Goodstream won. The price was 200 postcards with the photo and project description. The photo (seen to the left) show an Emerald damselfly (Lestes sponsa) resting on a flower of Great Willowherb (Epilobium hirsutum)
John participated in the Platform meeting ”LIFE Going up a level” in Lhee, The Netherlands 17-18 September Link It was an interesting meeting where John presented our experiences from LIFE-Goodstream and we got new ideas on biodiversity in intesified agricultural landscapes, and many new contacts with oither LIFE-projects
We have now submitted a new project application where we will use the measures in LIFE-Goodstream to investigate the flow regulating effect of wetlands.
Yesterday we had a full-day visit of some 30 people, mainly ”Opplandskonsulenter” from Denmark (local wetland coordinators), and also representatives from the Swedish Board of Agriculture and municipalities in Latvia.
We are part of a Formas-project led by professor Peter Hambäck at Stockholm university. Our participation in the project is a result of previous networking events in LIFE-Goodstream and Peter and PhD-student David Åhlén are at the moment in Halland for field work and we are planning which wetlands that should be included in the project. We are happy that several of the wetlands constructed in LIFE-Goodstream will be included.
Another Thesis-study has been done in LIFE-Goodstream. The 5th of June Sofia Hedman & Karin Jermer publicly presented and defended their Masterthesis work at the University of Halmstad titled; “The LIFE GoodStream project in Trönninge: current and expected effects on amphibian populations and otter presence”. A very good and thorough study!
Tidningen Våra fiskevatten besökte LIFE-Goodstream och Trönningeån och har publicerat en artikeln om vårt arbete.
Today it is ”biodiversity day” in Sweden. We celebrate the day by showing a small sample of the species we have found in our surveys in Goodstream. The different measures have large positive impact on the biodiversity in and along the stream Trönningeån.
John och Lea ledde en fältvandring, arrangerad av Jordbruksverket till bland annat LIFE-Goodstream-våtmarkerna. Deltagarna fick även prova på att själv håva upp småkryp och lära sig lite om nattsländelarver (husmaskar), klodyvel, dykarbaggar och andra akvatiska smådjur.
Vi har en praktikant från Tyskland som heter Nina Schneider hos oss för tillfället. Hon ska vara här under maj och juni och arbeta med inventeringar och provtagning. För tillfället inventerar hon fåglar och amfibier i våtmarkerna som anlagts inom LIFE-Goodstream.
We have an intern from Germany, Nina Schneider, who will work in LIFE-Goodstream during May and June as part of her studies at the University of Osnabrück. She will focus on biodiversity surveys (birds, amphibians) and also help with sampling and other project activities during her stay with us.
John Strand blev intervjuad live i Naturmorgon i P1 om våtmarksarbetet i LIFE-Goodstream. Länk om man vill lyssna: https://sverigesradio.se/sida/avsnitt/1154568?programid=1027
John Strand was interviewed in national radio on our work with wetlands in LIFE-Goodstream in September 2018.
Peter och John visade Goodstream för vattenenheten på Jönköpings länsstyrelse i början på september.
Peter and John demonstrated Goodstream to the waterunit of Jönköpings County Administration in the beginning of September.
LIFE14 ENV/SE/000047 is being implemented with the contribution of the LIFE financial instrument of the European Union
The project is co-financed by The Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management by grant 1:12; Measures for marine and water environment.
