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RISKGOV

Environmental Risk Governance of the Baltic Sea

Brief description

Environmental risk governance in the Baltic Sea is still unable to fully support the implementation of the ecosystem approach to management. Hence, the aims and expected outcomes of RISKGOV are:

  1. to improve our understanding of the structures and processes that shape the governance of environmental risks;
  2. to suggest a normative framework for improving environmental risk governance in the Baltic Sea.

These aims will be achieved by integrating social and natural science approaches on five strategically selected environmental risks (eutrophication, fisheries, biodiversity impacts, chemical pollution and maritime transportations) using the comparative case study approach.

The RISKGOV consortium has been assembled to meet these interdisciplinary research requirements and includes expertise on governance, assessment and communication of all environmental risks analysed in this study. RISKGOV focuses on three main areas of analysis and comparison:

  • WP 1 Governance structures: focuses on policy context, regulatory institutions, and forms of decision-making, collaboration and participation;
  • WP 2 Governance processes I: risk assessment / risk management; scrutinizes processes of interaction, as well as descriptions and management approaches to uncertainties and multiple lines of evidence, and
  • WP 3 Governance processes II: stakeholder communication; analyses stakeholder risk framings and institutional arrangements and procedures of risk communication at the different policy levels.

DIALOGIK contribution

  • Case study on overfishing
  • Lead of work package 3
  • Roundtable (3) on “Stakeholder participation and communication in Baltic Sea environmental risk governance”

Project partners

  • Södertörn University College (SUC), Sweden (coordinator)
  • Åbo Akademi University (ÅAU), Finland
  • Gdansk University, Poland