Recent activities of ports in South Baltic region require regular maintenance of operational depths in navigational areas and fairways. Development and maintenance of new ports will imply dredging of several million m3 of sediments in coming years. Although different handling methods of dredged materials are already available in Baltic Sea region existing legal regulations of several countries allow to deposit non-contaminated dredged sediments at special dumping sites, located in marine areas, which seems to be only a cost-effective, but not beneficial, handling alternative. There are more than 20 such dumping sites in the South-Eastern Baltic Sea. It is well recognized that disposal of dredged sediments may not only cause harm to the marine environment, but also disrupt sediment transport patterns in coastal zones. The later issue is particularly sensitive for the SE part of the Baltic sea, which suffers from the lack of sediments participating in natural sediments exchange processes. Scatter of the dumped matter and its impact to ecosystem is not enough investigated. The project plans, as a course of action, to establish proper management of existing dumping sites, to develop new ecosystem based principles for location of the new sites, to test the developed methodology in the pilot area of the Sventoji port in Lithuania and to make recommendation to HELCOM on how to locate, monitor and manage the new dumping sites.

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