Following  flooding across much of Europe in June the idea of integrating rivers back into their natural floodplains is being more widely discussed. An article in Spiegel Online looks at the effects of fthe flooding in Germany and asks whether governments are looking more seriously at river restoration.

Photo: Spiegel Online

Natural England and the Environment Agency will continue as separate entities but must undertake significant changes in the way they operate, Defra Secretary Owen Paterson has announced but they will be required to review their services and make further efficiences.

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 http://www.wiser.eu/results/conceptual-models/

The conceptual models are used to illustrate the relationships between three common restoration measures (riparian buffer instalment, instream mesohabitat improvement, weir-removal), its effects on instream environmental key variables, and eventually the impact of changing variables on benthic algae, macrophytes, benthic invertebrates and fish.