European Centre for River Restoration

EU Legislative Interests

1. ECRR's response to the Public Consultation to inform the Fitness Check of the EU Water Framework Directive, it’s associated Directives (Groundwater Directive and Environmental Quality Standards Directive) and the Floods Directive; March 2019 https://www.ecrr.org/Portals/27/Documents%20content/ECRR%20Submission%20to%20the%20WFD%20Review%2010_3_19.pdf?ver=2020-01-25-141616-977 2. ECRR's statement on the European Commission’s river restoration target of the Biodiversity Strategy 2030; November 2020. https://www.ecrr.org/Portals/27/Publications/Technical_Newsletter_2_-_2020_nieuw.pdf 3. ECRR's feedback in the open consultation process for the Strategy of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030; May 2020. 4. Wetlands International European Association's (ECRR Member) response to the Report From The Commission To The European Parliament And The Council on the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) and the Floods Directive (2007/60/EC) Second River Basin Management PlansFirst Flood Risk Management Plans. Time for a new recipe for flood risk management in Europe; December 2020. https://mcusercontent.com/4766e02910490b307e4390f15/files/9852fca9-a32f-4965-abec-1118934d0dba/Time_for_new_flood_risk_management_final.pdf 6. 2023 EU Biodiversity Strategy / Nature Restoration Law / Free-flowing rivers; A study on: A European national river continuity restoration policies review. Similarities and differences as well as completeness and effectiveness of 8 single national policies were identified to determine if it is possible to create a general policy framework for river continuity restoration. Existing issues as well as succesful functions of the river (continuity) resiration policies of the single countries are analysed, discussed and recommendations on what an effective and complete policy should antail are given. 7. The ECRR contributed directly through the CIS and indirectly by organising workshops for river restoration practitioners to the development of the free flowing rivers. 8. In December 2025 the ECRR launched its new multi-annual Strategic Approach to support ecological river restoration in greater Europe. This covers a wide range of EU policies.

Communication Activities

14. June 2023 Publication of the ECRR Technical Newsletter 1 - 2023, June https://www.ecrr.org/Publications/id/1154 15. June 22/23, in 2023 ECRR Coordinator gave a keynote presentation in Vienna at the River Management and Ecology Conference on European policies, river restoration and hydropower, organised by vgbe, VÖU and BOKU. Presentation title: From Water Framework Implementation to Fresh-Water Ecosystem Restoration; Partcipants about 50. 16. June 27, 2023 ECRR/INBO Seminar/webinar 'Improving River Continuity Restoration Policies for European Ecosystem-based River Management. Cooperating were the EU Projects MERLIN and Danube4All that make use of the results of ECRR Policies review. There were 125 participants. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0AS6BffXlQ&t=4s 17. The Europe - INBO Conference from 16 - 19 October in Valencia in Spain is on the implementation of the EU Water Directives. ECRR will (co)organise a workshop for 100 participants on 'River Restoration and Climate Change. Projects from the ECRR RiverWiki will be presented and discussed with the objective of experience and information exchange on river restoration in different climate change contexts. And a presentation will be given in one of the sessions on the River Continuity Restoration Policies Review. 18. Issue of ECRR Technical Newsletter December 2023 with articles on Strengthening Local Water Governance in Norway through Catchment Coordinators, From Cumbria to Albania: Learning from the Vjosa, Europe's last wild river, Breaking News: River Continuity Restoration in Finland. 19. Issue in 2023 of ECRR eNews #29, #30, #31, #32 #33 and #34 on river restoration news, publications and events. 20. Organisation of a webinar with 125 participants: Advancing Freshwater Ecosystem Restoration on 25 March 2024 21. Participation in and contribution to the Free-Flow Conference organised by the World Fish Migration Organisation in NL in April 2024. 22. Participation in and contribution to the SERE2024 Conference in EE in August 2024 23. Coorganiser and particpation of a river restoration practitioners study tour with 15 participants to Gipuzkoa, NW Spain to study the Gipuzkoa Masterplan and the LIFE project Kantauribai: Improving diadromous fish populations in Cantabrian Rivers, through a workshop and field visits. 24.Participation in the EURO-INBO World Assemblee 2025 in Bordeaux and France representing the 14 ECRR Member organisations. 25. producing and sending all over the year 6 eNews issues with ECRR News, Publications and Events on River Restoration. 26 Publication over the year 2024 two ECRR Technical Newsletters with each three technical articles on the Australian River Restoration Centre, remoival of the Morton Quarry Weir by hand in Scotland, the LIFE Dordogne Project. And on the Gipuzkoa Masterplan, the Open Rivers Programme and teh Lower Dnipro Self restoration. 27. Completion of LIFE Dordogne project activities concerning the selection of 8 comparable case studies to the Dordogne restoration, out of an inventory of 80 european cases. And the organisation of a workshop for the managers of these cases and the Dordogne management. All done by ECRR's members CIREF, Spain and The RRC, UK through the years 2023/24. 28. The ECRR Technical Newsletter in summer 2025 on River Restoration at Large was launched describing a number of LIFE projects implementing river restoration on a large scale. 29. In Juli a workshop was organised back to back with the I.S. Rivers 2025 conference in Lyon. The workshop was on Lateral River Continuity Restoration. A extensive workshop report was produced and is on line. 30. In September 2025 ECRR co-organised a River Lab at the IRF International River Symposium in Brisbane: Rivers as Pathways to Coillective Resilience A Global Community Perspective? A Summary report is online.

Interests Represented

Does not represent commercial interests

Member Of

INBO - International Network of Basin Organizations (www.inbo-news.org) GWP - Global Water Partnership (www.gwp.org)

Organisation Members

FINLAND: Finnish Environment Institute - SYKE (www.ymparisto.fi) FRANCE: French Agency for Biodiversity - OFB (http://river-restoration.onema.fr/content/physical-restoration-rivers) ITALY: Italian Centre for River Restoration (Centro Italiano per la Riqualificazione Fluviale) - CIRF (www.cirf.org) NORWAY: Norwegian Environment Agency - Miljødirektoratet (www.miljodirektoratet.no/english/) POLAND: Department of Hydraulic Engineering of the Warsaw University of Life Sciences - SSGW (http://w3k2.cem.sggw.pl/en/) SPAIN: Iberian Centre for River Restoration (Centro Iberico de Restauracion Fluvial) - CIREF (www.cirefluvial.com) SWEDEN: Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management - Havochvatten (www.havochvatten.se/en) THE NETHERLANDS: Foundation for Applied Water Research - STOWA (www.stowa.nl) THE NETHERLANDS: Blue Rivers Foundation (www.blueriversfoundation.org) UKRAINE: Institute of Water Problems and Land Reclamation - IWPLR (http://igim.org.ua/?gtlang=en) UNITED KINGDOM: The River Restoration Centre - RRC (www.therrc.com) FRANCE: INBO International Network of Basin Organisations SLOVAKIA: Global Water Partnership Central and Eastern Europe

Additional Information

The ECRR organisation members pay a diffferentiated fee of maximum € 1.000,-- per member per year, leading to the direct available budget as mentioned. Although, many of them make through their home organisation substantial (personel) costs for the implementation of the ECRR objectives and activties these can difficult be monitored and are therefore not known. But it is clear that these are the multiple of the direct ECRR budget.