Recording: Final webinar

Today the TRUST ALUM project hosted its final webinar, gathering almost 50 stakeholders from the Baltic Sea region, to reflect on an extraordinary journey — the first lake treatment with ALUM method in Baltic States, at Lake Velnezers in Riga.

This event was more than just a knowledge-sharing session — it was a celebration of built trust for ALUM water treatment among project partners, various stakeholders and public.

No worries if you missed it, here you can access 🔴 a recording!

Pioneering ALUM Treatment in the Baltics

Over the past two years, the TRUST ALUM project team — led by the Latvian Institute of Aquatic Ecology (LHEI)—has been on a mission to introduce and test ALUM water treatment as a scientifically proven, safe, and transparent method to tackle internal phosphorus pollution in heavily degraded lakes.

The project culminated in the first-ever large-scale ALUM application in the Baltic States, at Lake Velnezers, Riga. Alongside this, the team developed a comprehensive set of meterials designed to support replication of ALUM treatment across the whole BSR region.

Key Highlights from the Webinar

• The webinar presented recent developments in the use of polyaluminum chloride (PAC) as a treatment to bind excess phosphorus in lakes such as Lake Velnezers. Experts detailed how to plan the treatment, ensure proper monitoring and data gathering for modelling PAC, and even how to effectively communicate the whole process with locals.

• Attendees enjoyed a virtual tour of the innovative tools, fieldwork techniques, and laboratory methods employed throughout the treatment process, as well as during pre- and post-treatment monitoring. Highlights included a demonstration of the specialized treatment boat that was build and modeling approaches used to calculate needed PAC dosage.

• Participants were encouraged to explore the TRUST ALUM Toolbox and HUB materials to dive deeper into methodology, results, and guidelines for replication.

Regional Reflections and Next Steps

Perspectives from Mārcis Zariņš (Riga City Council, Latvia), Vaiva Ramanauskienė (Lithuania’s Environmental Centre for Administration and Technology), and Andreas Hoy (SEI Tallinn, Estonia) offered stakeholder experiences, showcasing how cross-border learning and trust-building have been essential to get acceptance towards potentially wider ALUM lake treatment applications.

We received lots of positive feedback from attendees and during the SLIDO session majority answered that they have trust in ALUM method application to treat phosphorous rich lakes.

As Elsi Kauppinen, EUSBSR Policy Area “PA Nutri” Coordinator remarked: “It was nice learning about the boat and new modelling tools!”

Explore More

• TRUST ALUM Project Page

• Project video and Treatment video

• ALUM Treatment Toolbox

• HUB Materials

• Newsletter #1 | Newsletter #2

Programme Manual Online

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