This year, water equivalent to almost two Lake Vänerns has been pushed out of the Baltic Sea. At the same time, the record low water level offers some hope for the oxygen-depleted seabed of the inland sea. ‘But it would be a bit like winning five Triss lottery tickets in a row,’ says Jörgen Öberg, oceanographer at SMHI.
The seabed in Byfjorden on the Swedish West coast is completely dead below a depth of 15 metres. Limited water exchange, which means that oxygen is quickly consumed, combined with old sins from the Uddevalla shipyard, which has accumulated large amounts of heavy metals in the bottom sediments, has made life almost impossible down there. But a new project is bringing life back to the dead seabed.
