Advancing freshwater restoration

EcoAdvance, MERLIN and ESP, Freshwater restoration: alive and well in Europe

3rd to 9th July, 11.30 CEST

Don’t miss this briefing!

• Welcome – Phyllis Posy
• Showcases and how they can be used – Lessons learned from EcoAdvance – Mark Morris and Phyllis Posy
• Freshwater Nature-based Solutions: turning systemic goals into real-world impact – Lessons learned from MERLIN – Sebastian Birk and Astrid Schmidt-Kloiber
• Highlights from ESP2025 in Darwin
  • What you might have missed – Conference takeaways
  • Nature-based solutions for rivers and more habitat restoration examples from Lithuania – Vytautas Narusevicius
  • Restore 4Life – Cristian Mihai Adamescu
  • YESS: A post doc’s view – Miguel Rinacio
• What’s Next? – Growing the Ecosystem Service community
  • Networking through ESP groups to amplify Ecosystem Service methods and share resources – Katerina Atanasovska
  • One EcoSystem Journal – Publishing to support dialogue and collaboration on Ecosystem Services – Iva Boyadzhieva
  • How to get involved in ESP2026 in Praha –Davina Vackarova
• Questions and answers

Please register here: https://project-merlin.eu/webinars.html 

Nice to meet in person as we wrap up EcoAdvance (Horizon Europe) and our work showcasing the people who make a difference.

Inspiring talks by Michal Kravčík, Máté Chappon, Atila Bezdan and David Attila Molnar highlighted key evidence of progress on freshwater restoration in the Danube region. They summarized the Showcases, presenting lessons they learned on what makes projects prone to success.

**Advice from Prof Bezdan: avoid jumping straight into technical details without first building trust and shared goals with stakeholders. Don’t overlook local knowledge or skip genuine community engagement.

**Dr. Molnar outlines his 5 easy steps – and how he helped persuade communities in 9 Danuabe countries to join the fight agains plastic pollution: 1.Write a protocol. 2.Try to follow it. 3.Learn to change it. 4.Get used to improvise. 5. Document everything.

**Dr. Kravcik focuses on small water cycles and has seen the Big Change it has made:: In Slovakia, many people already know that retaining rainwater in a damaged country is essential for the future of the country.

Different challenges,different solutions, different countries, but all agreed on the central methodologies: From community dialogue on allocating resources and land to reduce flooding while preserving navigation with Nature based solutions, riverboats that find plastic trash hotspots, innovative constructed wetlands to reduce pollution and improve water quality, and research on harmonizing the water cycle, these innovations represent strides in implementation the hashtag#EuropeanGreenDeal. Hear the voices and perspectives of more innovators in freshwater restoration at https://lnkd.in/ebhnKNzv 

Join us online for the EcoAdvance Side Workshop! - Hear about what drives successful freshwater restoration! 

June 17 | Online during the DanubeSediment_Q2 (Interreg) Stakeholder Event in cooperation with DANUBE4all Project

Workshop Structure:

• Part 1: Welcome, Keynotes, DanubeSediment_Q2 Integrated Sediment Managagement Plan and the DANUBE4all Restoration Action Plan (see agenda for details)
• Part 2: Presentations from other water-related projects, followed by the EcoAdvance Breakout Session
  
  

During the EcoAdvance session, we’ll present insights from our Horizon-funded project and explore what drives successful freshwater restoration:

• Navigating conflicting interests
• Engaging stakeholders and local communities
• Building synergies across projects

Your input matters – join us online!

Register here: https://lnkd.in/dnNEJxXj 

It’s here!

It’s the debut of the EcoAdvance Freshwater Restoration Project Visualisation Tool---Congratulations to our partners Lisa Waldenberger and Helmut Habersack at hashtag#BOKUUniversityofNaturalResourcesandLifeSciences for developing a tool to help practitioners, planners, and funders make sense of the complexity of hashtag#NatureBasedSolutions for hashtag#freshwaterrestoration.

Historically, many restoration efforts were designed and evaluated with a narrow focus, targeting a single issue like reducing nutrient runoff or restoring fish populations. However, we now recognize that successful restoration requires a more holistic approach—one that accounts for the interconnected benefits and trade-offs of an intervention across many domains.

Nature-based solutions for freshwater restoration are inherently multi-dimensional. They often address a wide range of ecological, social, and economic challenges—such as improving water quality, enhancing biodiversity, increasing climate resilience, and supporting local livelihoods.

This tool creates a platform to discuss and communicate the multiple benefits of nature-based solutions to stakeholders. This shift from single-issue to multi-benefit evaluation is essential for maximizing the impact of hashtag#NBS The tool supports this transition by providing a clear and accessible way to reflect on and communicate the diverse benefits of a project.

By asking structured questions across different aspects of a restoration project, the tool generates radar charts that visually capture the breadth and balance of outcomes—intended or achieved. The tool can be used in various stages of a project: planning, funding, evaluating, documenting. These visual summaries help demonstrate and communicate how a project contributes to multiple domains, making it easier to identify strengths, gaps, and opportunities for improvement.

By embracing the complexity of restoration and making it easier to visualize, this tool empowers the community of practice to move toward more resilient, effective, and widely supported freshwater solutions.

You can get the full story on the tool and use it for your project (big or small) at the link below.

https://ecoadvance.eu/prone2success/visualisation-tool/ 

Check out the recently published advice from some of Europe’s leading environmentalists spotlighted by the EcoAdvance Horizon project.. (link below)

Tamas Gruber was selected as a Recreating Freshwater Ecosystems Showcase for his leadership at WWF Hungary, MERLIN and his work on the Liberty Island Life Project, which revitalized and restored a 3 km. section of the island in the Danube River.

You can hear him describe the various aspects that contributed to the success of this Nature based solution to reactivate the natural flow, natural vegetation and remove invasive plants and reduce other pressures. 

Tamas makes it clear that while individuals can trigger and must lead important restorations, galvanizing partners and like-minded individuals, make fresh water restoration mega projects like this Prone to Success.

https://ecoadvance.eu/showcasing-people/solving-freshwater-restoration-challenges/tams-gruber/ 

Benjamin Camilleri is a perfect example of just that: An EcoAdvance Showcase for Recreating Freshwater Ecosystems. With minimal resources he turned hashtag#ChadwickLakes into a example of what freshwater restoration can be --Improvements in water quality, Habitats for birds and butterflies, trail to promote accessibility for the citizens of Malta to enjoy it, coupled with community activities and educational initiatives.
You can listen to him explain why and how he did it. Link below.

Read about his journey and how he is working to make sure that people see the potential beauty of the green biodiverse Malta that he sees. https://ecoadvance.eu/showcasing-people/solving-freshwater-restoration-challenges/benjamin-camilleri/ 

We can certainly learn a lot from the accomplishments and leadership of Pao Fernández Garrido in advancing freshwater restoration. It is not only about the numbers. The people like Pao make the real difference! 

Want to see how it can be done? Check out the Showcases in the people-centered database at www.ecoadvance.eu to see evidence of progress from around the Eu. https://ecoadvance.eu/showcasing-people/solving-freshwater-restoration-challenges/pao-fernndez-garrido/ 

Since EcoAdvance (Horizon Europe) started, we have strived to present a balance between the different drivers and consequences of freshwater restoration: bringing back nature while understanding and facilitating local needs for renewable energy, navigation, water security, NBS and low cost engineered solutions.

• Remove, rehabilitate, revamp dams to achieve the river connectivity goals?
• Is there one solution for all? Does it serve the local citizens?
• Can the planning process required of each Member State achieve a balance or do cultural and social stereotypes command the stage? 
• What do people see as the ideal, right thing to do and are they willing to pay for it?
• Are the stereotypes – people in arid area want dams for water security and people in water-abundance area what connectivity and natural landscapes. – right and useful for decision-making?
  
  

The recent EcoAdvance (Horizon Europe) survey (results forthcoming) to identify the factors that make freshwater restorations successful --both from the perspective of the environment and local socio-financial considerations, made it clear that one size does not fit all. Assuming that a specific stakeholder group will hold a particular position and planning “accordingly” does not make projects prone to success.

How do you achieve real stakeholder engagement as part of the hashtag#NatureRestorationLaw platform? 

A recent EcoAdvance (Horizon Europe) Survey showed that that hope is high. 65% of the respondents agreed with the statement: 
“The Nature Restoration Law would make our restoration actions easier through a legal framework,”  and 35% said they did not know or did not think it would.
 
But it is the beginning – and not the end-game.
 
Thus the recent Call to Action from scientists and academics:
Twan Stoffers Florian Altermatt Olena Bilous Florian Borgwardt Tom Buijse Elisabeth Bondar-Kunze Núria Cid Tibor Eros Gertrud Haidvogl Severin Hohensinner Johannes Kowal Tianna Peller Stefan Schmutz Günther Unfer Prof. Dr. Sonja C. Jähnig Thomas Hein Simon Vitecek Damiano Baldan Maria Teresa Ferreira Andrea Funk Leopold Nagelkerke Jakob Neuburg and Gabriel Singer
reviewed the law, and highlighted the uphill road ahead for real progress on river and freshwater restoration to make a real – rather than theoretic real difference on climate change, biodiversity, air and water quality, and reduce the impact of natural disasters. 
 
For the law to have an impact wider than its theoretical framework,  the Call To Action notes 7 pathways that must be built and then used by national and local governments, and communities:

1. DEFINITIONS.  Each country must define a "free flowing river", the types of barriers to be removed and identify preservation/restoration targets. 
2. MULTI-DIMENSIONAL ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK.
   A four dimensional approach of longitudinal, lateral and vertical, and flow within a dendritic river network to help keep focus on longitudinal integrity and connectivity of the river for biodiversity and ecosystem functioning
3. HOLISTIC CATCHMENT LEVEL THINKING/PLANNING. 
   It's not enough to just look on a local basis --  research and policies will need to be coordinated between governments. 
4. REASSESS current projects in order to prioritize projects that will impact NRL goals, and lower or stop projects that hinder them. 
5. ENGAGE THE CITIZENS! Professionals have to make sure to involve all levels of government, all stakeholders in local communities.
6. FACE CONFLICT AND FIND SOLUTIONS. Where conflict arises,
   such as when agricultural production or hydropower  or other
   important goals compete with NRL goals—build methods to find
   compromises rather than pushing the conflict under the rug. 
7. MONITOR PROGRESS AND SHARE RESULTS BROADLY.  Design a monitoring database for regular updates and easy for public access; foster transparency and accountability. 

In short, this Call to Action maps out the work ahead– the legal tools necessary to preserve Europe’s rivers are on the books – now comes the hard work of implementation.