RESTORE's Rivers by Design guide to river restoration for land-use professionals has had a few minor changes, including an update to the table showing the benefits of river restoration in the planning and development process.

The guide shows the crucial role planners, architects and developers the crucial role they can play in river restoratation. The document explains the contexty and need for river restoration and provides guidance on planing projects to make sure sustainable development is achieved.

These pages are an on-line case study guide hosted on the RESTORE website. They are developed for flood risk managers. It provides examples of how to implement the environmental improvements (known as mitigation measures) set out in the Water Framework Directive (WFD). It shows that we can deliver exciting integrated solutions to improve the environment for communities and wildlife.

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By Paul Brotherton

As part of a training course on river restoration sponsored by the RESTORE project, I recently visited the Waal River, a main branch of the Rhine River, flowing through the Netherlands. Here the Dutch are making ‘Room for the River’, restoring floodplains to reduce the risks of floods and creating benefits for people and nature. On the heels of recent catastrophic floods in Central Europe, this approach deserves a closer look if Europe is to meet many of its growing environmental and social policy challenges, including climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction.

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

 The LIFE+ RII project (LIFE11 ENV/IT/000243 “Riqualificazione integrata idraulico-ambientale dei RII appartenenti alla fascia pedemontana dell’Emilia Romagna”) has start its activities.