Advancing freshwater restoration

COMING UP Thursday the 24 at 9am at Session ID 11517 at the Stockholm Water Week – a bonanza for business – take the angst out of figuring out how and how much to disclose about your water use and targets.

Introducing the Freshwater Accountability Navigator (FAN), a streamlined and interactive guidance that supports business in the application of the various frameworks and standards for responding to customer and regulator demand for information about your water practices.
The Freshwater Accountability Navigator (FAN) had its original debut at the UN 2023 Water Conference back in March – now the rollout and scale up!

It is an online interactive tool being developed by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (in collaboration with Quantis) to guide companies on which water-related frameworks and tools to use to drive more accountable water stewardship action across their value chain. The tool will be available to companies for regular use by the end of 2023 and this session will give attendees an opportunity to look under the hood and provide feedback to help the FAN create a common understanding of what ‘good’ corporate accountability for #freshwater looks like.

Other organizations have supported the development too, including:
Capitals Coalition
Global Commons Alliance
World Benchmarking Alliance
EcoAdvance (Horizon Europe) is taking a holistic view of freshwater ecosystem restoration and urging businesses to do the same! More good stewardship of freshwater ecosystems will require less restoration down the road!

#worldwaterweek
 

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