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Recent studies have shown that concern for the environment is widespread and persistent in many countries, both rich and poor. However, the origins and scope of this concern can differ between different individuals, groups and societies, depending on whether the concern stems from perceived global degradation, or from personally experienced unsatisfactory local living conditions. Regional newspapers have been credited with an important role in the dissemination of environmental concern, especially at the local level. In this study, the types of environmental issues reported in the press, and the results of a survey of citizen concern with specific environmental problems, are examined. The results show that the alleged agenda-setting role of the regional newspapers in environmental issues is not pronounced, and demonstrate that personal experience of local environmental problems, interpersonal communication and levels of trust for news sources, may have more substantial effects on the public's perceptions of local environmental risks than information communicated through the press. The idea of territory, and the obtrusiveness of environmental problems, are then used to explain the weak role of the regional press in influencing public saliency of environmental problems.

This article compares environmental beliefs and attitudes in Estonia, Latvia, and Sweden. It is based on interviews in Tartu, Estonia, and Riga, Latvia, and on an extract from a postal survey in the county of Östergötland, Sweden. Four scales were used in the study: the new environmental paradigm (NEP) scale, a scale to measure support for science and technology, a scale to measure postmaterial values, and a scale to measure concern for local environmental problems. The expected correlations between support for the NEP, distrust of science and technology, postmaterial values, and concern for environmental conditions were only partially supported by the results of the Swedish study, and, in the case of the Baltic samples, not at all. A fourth explanatory factor—that environmental concern can be based either on direct personal experience of the environment, or on symbolic general representations of reported global problems-is used to explain these discrepancies.

Cover -- Copyright -- Contents -- Preface -- About the editors -- Contributors -- 1. Introduction: identifying and solving problems in an integrated approach -- 1.1 Introduction to recent changes in European water policy -- 1.2 Transboundary water management: a particularly problematic issue -- 1.3 Water management in the new EU border regions -- 1.4 The problems facing transboundary cooperation in northeast Europe -- 1.5 Geo-politics in the Baltic States -- 1.6 Transboundary cooperation in the Baltic States -- 1.7 Environmental problems in the Baltic States -- 1.8 The need (and challenges) of using an integrated approach in water management -- 1.9 Integration! Integration? -- 1.10 Scientific and disciplinary differences -- 1.11 The MANTRA-East approach -- 1.12 Scenarios as a methodology for an integrated approach to water management -- References -- 2. The physical environment: Lake Peipsi and its drainage basin -- 2.1 Introduction -- 2.2 Geographical features of the Lake Peipsi and its drainage basin -- 2.3 Point and non-point source pollution in the Lake Peipsi basin -- 2.4 River nutrient loads in the drainage basin -- 2.5 Water quality of the lake -- 2.6 Concluding discussion -- References -- 3. The administrative and political environment -- 3.1 Introduction -- 3.2 The Baltic States -- 3.3 Environmental management in Russia during the early 2000s -- 3.4 Environmental management in Estonia in the early 2000s -- 3.5 Background of the CAP -- 3.6 Problems and co-operation -- References -- 4. Qualitative scenarios -- 4.1 Introduction -- 4.2 Scenarios for the Russian-Estonian border -- 4.3 Discussion of the concepts and frameworks behind the scenarios -- References -- 5. Quantitative scenarios and modelling -- 5.1 Use of models in the scenarios for Lake Peipsi -- 5.2 Riverine and source emission modelling.

One of the major problems facing practitioners and scientists working with water management is how to integrate knowledge and experiences from scientific, policy and stakeholder perspectives. In this book this science-policy-stakeholder interface (SPSI) is examined both analytically and through the description of practical experiences from river basins in Europe, India and South-East Asia. These include the Tungabhadra (India), Sesan (Vietnam/Cambodia), Tagus (Spain/Portugal) and Glomma (Norway), which particularly highlight issues associated with pollution, severely altered river flows and tr