LIFE IS SALACA celebrates World Water Day

On 22 March we mark World Water Day, when everyone is invited to think, even for a moment, about the importance of water, its availability in different regions of the world and how essential water quality is in our everyday lives.

Water is one of the most important natural resources, without which life on Earth would be unthinkable. Waters provide many valuable services to both nature and people. They are both a home and a migration corridor for aquatic organisms, they help regulate the climate and floods, and they offer a wide range of recreational opportunities – tourism, boating, swimming and fishing. However, waters can only provide all these services we are used to if they are “healthy”, that is, of good quality. That is why it is everyone’s responsibility to take care of them and manage them properly.

Around 12,500 larger and smaller rivers flow through Latvia, and more than 2,000 lakes lie in hollows in the landscape, so we can rightly call ourselves a water superpower. Such a wealth of surface water is not only a source of joy and pride, but also an obligation to preserve these unique natural values for future generations.

The study area of LIFE IS SALACA is the Salaca basin, which can boast beautiful and diverse watercourses. The Pužupe, Korģe, Svētupe, Glāžupe, Iģe, Jogla and, of course, the Salaca itself – these are just some of the rivers that adorn the North Vidzeme landscape with their flow! The project includes both practical management measures and the preparation of planning documents, with the aim of improving the quality of the rivers in the Salaca sub-basin and preserving their natural values in the long term.

The LIFE IS SALACA logo contains the most characteristic element of the project – a drop of water. But water does not exist on its own: next to it, in close interaction, are the biocoenosis and the environment that affect it. The Salaca is the most important salmon river in the Baltic states – the fish silhouette in the water drop symbolises this and quietly invites us to work together to protect, preserve and improve biodiversity not only in the Salaca basin but in all Latvian rivers.