LIFE+ RESTORE: sharing river restoration best practices

The workshop, held in November 2011 in Ljubljana, Slovenia, looked at “Experiences on reaching consensus on river restoration good practices, as a means to support delivery of European policy goals.”  It was facilitated by the Environment Agency (England and Wales), the Government Service for Land and Water Management (DLG, the Netherlands), The River Restoration Centre (UK), Wetlands International, CIRF (Italy) and SYKE (Finland) as part of the ongoing RESTORE partnership. It was attended by people from 24 countries with a variety of backgrounds such as fisheries, engineering, hydromorphology or education – but all interested in improving their river environment. For more information, please contact antonia.scarr@environment-agency.gov.uk; or see the ECCR newsletter (page 6).

The workshop was organised within the framework of an international river restoration event 16-18 November 2011 – jointly hosted by RESTORE and the World Water Forum – to discuss among others, the delivery of the 2nd and 3rd cycles of the European Water framework Directive.

The 2010-2013 LIFE+ project is a mechanism through which information and guidance on ways of achieving this can be communicated. The project aims to develop a network linking policymakers, river basin planners, practitioners and experts across Europe to share information and good practice on river restoration activities. A key tool, currently being developed, is an online searchable database ‘Wikitool’ of river restoration case studies. For more information, see the project website.