Advancing freshwater restoration

Astonishing Consensus and Call to action from 96 #freshwater leaders in Europe including Peter Haase, Ellen A. R. Welti Florian Altermatt, roberta bottarin, Miguel Cañedo-Argüelles, Thibault DATRY, Gerald Dörflinger, Vesela Evtimova, and Iakovos Tziortzis.

What do you think? Is that how you see EU progress in freshwater restoration? Join the conversation!

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ecoadvance-horizon-europe_nature-freshwater-biodiversity-recovery-activity-7098022108403818496-LwdU?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop 

This year’s theme, Seeds of Change: 'Innovative Solutions for a Water-Wise World' has 3 important sessions on Freshwater ecosystem restoration, and it is not a moment too soon, with Freshwater Ecosystems suffering disproportionately around the world.

Thanks to campaigns by leading environmentalists, inland waters are now explicitly included in the Global Biodiversity Framework. But here’s the big challenge: Join August 20th at 14:00 (Sweden time) with Mariana Nava from Mexico to focus on implementation and how it can be accomplished. Hear from experts from around the world what a successful GBF implementation for inland waters will take: Join Session 10903, Multi-sectoral opportunities for freshwater outcomes in the Global Biodiversity Framework to learn about the new tools, datasets, guidance in development.

It is easy to register and on-line attendance is free: https://lnkd.in/dMQD4zZE 

Don’t have time to go through the whole program to find the Freshwater-relevant sessions? Check back on this page to find out what else is happening…

#WorldWaterWeek #freshwater

Conservation International
IUCN
Synchronicity Earth
The Nature Conservancy
Wetlands International
WWF

Don’t miss probably the best – and for some the first - 3 day immersion and post-pandemic person-to-person opportunity to network with the foremost leaders in River Restoration.
 
The notion behind the Scientific Advances in River Restoration (SARR) conference – 6th – 8th September 2023, University of Liverpool, is to galvanize and strengthen the River Restoration community. It is an opportunity to integrate what we know with what we are learning about river restoration: latest scientific advancements, applying tools and frameworks to new projects, refining tools we have and developing new ones to confront the challenges of a changing landscape.

For example, Yaron Hershkovitz, PhD will help launch the opening day Plenary with his talk "Applying DPSIR as a framework for an integrated catchment-scale management: the Tzipori stream (Israel) as a model" will detail some of the key challenges for achieving good ecological state in a heavily utilized agricultural landscape, under multiple pressures.
 
The UK River Restoration Centre (RRC) curated the agenda from a holistic perspective to include sessions with speakers from 20 countries covering topics from bioengineering to soils and carbon to geomorphology, social policy, flooding, monitoring, social partnerships and everything in between, with lots of networking opportunities. The opening plenary is a good illustration. In addition to Herskovitz, it includes:

Connectivity as a framework for analysis of strategies and effects of restoration in fluvial systems (Janet Hooke, University of Liverpool) ;
Music and River Regeneration: Indigenous and ecomusicological perspectives on songs, water and knowledge (Victor Kinjo, University of São Paulo, New York University)
 
Lots of reports on case studies too, like:
➡️ Robert Grabowski, Cranfield University - The actors of river restoration in Romania: a network perspective.
➡️ Roey Egozi, Soil Erosion Research Station - Process based restoration of agriculture streams in Israel: Facing the reality, Nahalal stream case study

The conference is put together by the RRC, a not-for-profit advice and information organization in the UK, which helps support and enable river restoration.

Check it out at: https://lnkd.in/d6H3NgM8 

Last year at this time The Oder River in Poland and Germany suffered from massive fish kills due to toxic algae, high temperatures and low water levels… Different organizations attributed factors like mining salts, agricultural nutrients and poor water quality of the freshwater ecosystem as factors that contributed to and intensified the disaster.

What must we do to restore our freshwaters to make sure there is no repeat performance???

Already this year a tributary of the Oder suffered a fish kill  and authorities are trying to prevent further degradation by infusing the creek with oxygeh.

There are lessons to be learned from the last 20 years of freshwater ecosystem restoration projects – how do we leverage the knowledge and experience we have gained?

Join us at  https://lnkd.in/dkvAfFAQ to learn from the past and do better in the future!

Starting a conversation about balancing hydro renewable energy goals with freshwater ecosystem environmental goals at a CINEA - European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency meeting with introductions by Thomas Schleker for DG RTD and Jill Michielsen DG ENV.

Mark Morris, EcoAdvance (Horizon Europe) coordinator joined a cluster of hydropower research projects managed by CINEA - European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency in Brussels earlier this week. 
The meeting, with presentations by AFC4Hydro, XFLEX HYDRO, ALPHEUS, Hydro4U, HYPOSO, H-HOPE, AGISTIN (Horizon Europe project), ETIP HYDROPOWER showed important efforts to address the energy crisis and support the clean energy transition with hydropower playing a key role in the integration to the energy grid of renewable sources such as wind and pv. Hydro pumped storage solutions also offer an effective option for storing and providing energy on demand. However, balancing the needs for clean energy with the needs for freshwater ecosystem restoration, and in particular river connectivity, poses a challenge.
 
That's where EcoAdvance comes in, Coordinator Mark Morris explained – finding the nexus where measures are being taken to create more sustainable hydropower solutions which address or minimise impacts and provide an acceptable balance between energy and environmental goals.
Know of an example or have some thoughts to share? Comment below and register for the consultation at www.EcoAdvance.eu

#freshwater #Ecosystem #restoration #hydropower #connectivity

Europe has taken one more step for restoration!

After the win in the Council of the European Union yesterday to move a revised Nature Restoration Law forward, Europe is getting closer to fulfilling the intent and potential of the European Green Deal.

But the battle is not over!

This version serves as the basis for further negotiations, of course, so changes are possible. For Member States with plans to restore freshwater ecosystems not yet protected that have languished in the wings for lack of resources or attention, this is the opportunity for Freshwater Champions to make sure freshwater ecosystems move to the top of the list.

The original specificity of binding targets took a bit of a beating, but the new version will hopefully mean serious restoration for freshwater ecosystems – and not just an exclusive focus on one type of habitat or project. The revised text allows Member States to look at all habitats together and prioritize the most urgent restoration needs.

If you know a Freshwater Champion in your country – someone who has advocated for restoration and protection of freshwater ecosystems – tell them about EcoAdvance – an EU project to help freshwater ecosystem restorations be more successful. Join at www.ecoAdvance.eu.

Great pix of the cluster coordinators with Mark Morris coodinator at EcoAdvance

#Make_Nature_Count – an online webinar May 24th from the Netherlands Foundation for Sustainable development was a brilliant tour de force from Dolf de Groot. Vince van t' Hoff and Victoria Guisado Goni among others.

They have taken the concept of ecosystem services valuation and made it real through collating, analyzing, classifying and reporting thousands of ecosystem services valuation studies from around the world.
 
Their database, ESVD.net collects all these valuation studies, analyzes them, standardizes them and makes it easy for restoration proposers and funders to compare values of the ecosystem services that can be provided by restoration with alternative scenarios. Their methodology preserves the full breath of context-driven valuations and provides a good foundation for funders, #biodiversity policy makers and restorationist to find country, service and biome specific data and even get the original studies to check details and context if they want.
They have almost 3000 studies from Europe alone!   And the new interface and upgrade they introduced to include updated classification systems and standardize over 70% of the studies on a single baseline scale are really user friendly, especially with their mapping tool.
 Kudos to the Dutch government, represented by Franc van der Steen for financing the system and keeping it open for free public access. A clear showcase for how and public of how developing foundational data can help Europe restore its
 
 What a resource for freshwater ecosystem restoration practitioners and funders! A clear showcase for initiatives that make a real difference and advance freshwater ecosystem restoration in Europe.

Register at www.ecoadvance.eu to contribute and find out more about the people and projects that are improving the repeatability of in freshwater ecosystem restoration success in Europe and beyond.