RESTORE and several partners with an interest in European water policy made the following submission to the European Commission's Consultation on Policy Options for the Blueprint to Safeguard Europe's waters. We highlight the importance of river restoration and green infrastructure for improving the health of Europe's waters and the role our networks can play in achieving these goals.

REstoring rivers FOR effective catchment Management - www.reformrivers.eu/

Project duration: November 2011 - October 2015

Advancing European Integrated River Basin Management - side session

23 May - 11.30 - 13.00

Salon Rouge

These presentations will highlight the European-wide experience of integrated river basin management and how initiatives such as the Water Framework Directive, EU LIFE project funding and transnational approaches to basin programs have assisted in the advancement of water quality improvements, environmental flows and aquatic biodiversity at the river basin scale across the EU.

In a Radio 4 programme aired in April as part of the Nature series, Brett Westwood explored the growing use of coarse woody debris (CWD) in managing rivers.  

 ''According to Staffordshire Wildlife Trust, fish live in trees too'', says the BBC Radio 4. ''The Trust's biologists are using wood as a remarkably effective tool to change the depth and flow of streams and improve them for wildlife. They don't just stop at streams either: at the confluence of the Tame and Trent rivers, they've submerged entire willow trees in gravel islands in a project to widen the river channel.

A two day conference was hosted by the River Restoration Centre and held at Nottingham University in April. The event presented some of the most cutting edge and innovative ways of achieving river restoration to a 200 strong audience of international environmental experts.