| Pirkanmaa Regional
Environment Centre (PREC) is a governmental organisation working under
the Ministry of Environment, Finland (partly under the Ministry of Agriculture
and Forestry). The mandate of PREC covers environmental protection, protection
of biodiversity, sustainable use of natural resources, land use and protection
of valuable buildings, responsibility for EIA, and gathering, processing
and distribution of environmental information in its region, as well as
environmental research within its specialised research areas. Total amount
of employees at PREC is 140. In the Research Department 25 scientist are
working.
Lake Längelmävesi
PREC has the strongest
research department within regional environmental administration in Finland.
Among the four specialised research areas, as supported by the Ministry
of Environment, are environmental modelling and hydrodynamical research
of lakes, rivers and coastal areas, solid wastes and waste water treatment.
PREC was in major role in lake studies during years 1990-95 in The Finnish
Climate Change Program (SILMU) actively developing and applying models
for predicting the thermal and eutrophication development of Finnish lakes.
The hydrodynamical studies at PREC include water flow, temperature regime
and sediment transport studies. 3D modelling is carried out to support
these studies. For the watershed modelling conceptual runoff and nutrient
transport models are used as well as GIS applications.
In Lake Längelmävesi area
field erosion caused by runoff in springtime creates nutrient loading
PREC has conducted
several catchment-lake modelling projects on its region. PREC is studying
the effects of hydrodynamic forcing on cyanobacterial blooming with Finnish
Marine Institute (EU-MITEC project, MAST-program) on Baltic and also with
University of Uppsala on Lake Erken. With Baltic Sea Research Institute
at Waernemuende in Germany a joint work is going for flow model application
and validation. In EU-TACIS funded project DIMPLA (Development of Monitoring
Plan for Lake Ladoga) PREC has been coordinating the hydrodynamic task
as in Lake Tanganyika Research Project in Eastern Africa funded by FAO/FINNIDA.
PREC is a partner
at EU-TACIS funded project of Lake Issuk-Kul mixing studies in Kyrgystan.
PREC has been conducting bilateral research for Lake Restoration in Estonia
on Lake Vörtsjärv (with University of Tartu and Vörstjärv
Limnological Station) and in Latvia on Lake Burtnieks (Technical University
of Latvia and Ministry of the Environment, Latvia).
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