Resilience is the ability of ecological systems to withstand external pressures, such as climate change, is called resilience. Various studies show that ecosystems resilience depends on their biodiversity. The Barents Sea Region has specific environmental factors that affect the level of ecosystem biodiversity. Our target is to identify the level of biodiversity of aquatic and wetland ecosystems at the present stage to understand how the rivers need to be restored further.

Each of the four countries has its own environmental problems. The approaches to solving these problems, including at the legislative level, are also different. The partners have different backgrounds to achieve their goals. For instance, Sweden and Norway, where rivers were changed significantly by timber rafting in the past, in recent years have been actively involved in mapping these disturbances and restoring rivers, improving conditions for fish migration, primarily salmonids. Therefore in this project they act as experts in the ecological restoration of small rivers and streams, sharing their positive and negative experience with the other participants. In Finland rivers were used both for timber rafting and in gold mining. That is why their watercourses were changed differently, and their restoration has begun. In Russia, in particular in Murmansk Region courses of small rivers were not changed for timber rafting as in the Scandinavian countries. Instead of this much larger rivers were used for rafting. But there were other factors like construction of hydroelectric dams, deforestation along river banks, and logs left in river beds after timber rafting. Moreover, in all countries there is river bank erosion.

Taking into account these differences and specific features of natural resource management in the past, this project encourages exchange of best practices in river restoration and removal of migration barriers for fish, where possible. Various training seminars are being organized. Experts, public organizations, regional and municipal authorities and industrial companies are involved. 2019 was the first year of the project. In 2019 field workshops on methods of field mapping of the ecological state of rivers were held (Menesjarvi, Lapland Province, Finland). There was also a workshop on assessment of river erosion and bank restoration (Varzuga, Murmansk Region, Russia). A field workshop on river restoration was planned to be held in 2020 (Jokkmokk, Sweden), but it was postponed to 2021 due to the situation with the pandemic.

In this project Russia and Finland pay much attention to mapping of natural and cultural sites located at courses or on banks of the rivers studied. It is needed for the researchers to have up-to-date information about the state of the watercourses and reasonably plan the restoration of the specific parts of the courses and banks.

In 2019 and 2020 in Russia the following rivers were inspected and their water flora, bird and fish populations were mapped: the Pasvik, Vorjema, Varzuga, Vyala and Indel Rivers. Water samples for the further hydrochemical and hydrobiological analysis were taken from some rivers. The Pasvik and Vorjema rivers are being inspected for the most important spawning places of salmonids and river bank erosion that needs human involvement.

By the end of the project in the four countries 198 km of watercourses are to be mapped, 208 km of watercourses are to be restored and their environmental conditions are to be improved. As well as 33 migration barriers for fishes are to be installed, 9 km of river banks are to be protected from erosion and 3 km are to be protected from floods. 553 km of rivers and streams are to become convenient for salmonids migration.

In this project some river courses will be restored, their risk of floods caused by climate change will be decreased. Small drainage pipes at places where roads cross rivers and streams will be replaced by bigger pipes or bridges. The infrastructure will be improved and fish migration will increase as the barriers would have been moderated.

Ongoing research on hydroelectricity and timber floating influence on the state of aquatic ecosystems, mapping habitat areas of birds and fishes, research on their population will let partners work out proposals for authorities and industrial companies. In this part the ReArc project is closely connected with the MUP project (KO 1110). Projects share information which encourages improvement of the environment. Local and regional economy will also get advantage because fish populations would have increased in restored river courses.

Ecological Restoration of Arctic Rivers (ReArc, KO 1078) is a project of Kolarctic CBC 2014−2020, funded by European Union, Russia, Norway, Finland and Sweden.
https://kolarctic.info/ru/