HSBC is investing $100m to help transform the lives of more than 1 million people through providing access to safe water and spearheading water protection projects. The bank will be working with leading charities on social and environmental projects which have the potential to provide long-term economic benefits to local communities.

see this website for more information: http://www.hsbc.com/1/2/newsroom/news/2012/water-programme

The ABC (the Aussie version of the BBC) has created an online game where you're in charge of the whole catchment.

Play Catchment Detox to see if you successfully manage a river catchment and create a sustainable and thriving economy. You get to decide what activities you undertake - whether to plant crops, log forests, build factories or set up national parks. The aim is to avoid environmental problems and provide food and wealth for the population.

Eight kilometres of river restored, 4,000 homes protected from flood and two million tonnes of soil decontaminated

The work to complete many of the environmental improvements at the Olympic Park and secure a green legacy for future generations was completed today, the Environment Agency has announced.

Around 2.5 square kilometres of land, much of it polluted, has been cleaned-up – the equivalent of 297 football pitches. The colossal clean-up operation involved planting more than 300,000 wetland plants, 2,000 native trees and restoring eight kilometres of the River Lea.

The Environment Agency’s approach to regulating the process minimised the amount of contaminated soil leaving the Olympic Park. It helped the ODA with the clean-up of two million tonnes of soil meaning it could be kept on site for re-use, thereby reducing the amount that had to go to landfill by 80 per cent.  

A two-hour RESTORE workshop will be a special session at the CIWEM International Water Management conference to be held at the World Trade Centre in Lille on the 22nd February. The theme of the workshop is "Restoring Europe’s rivers in the context of wider water management objectives". To have a look at the flier for this, please click on the headline (link).