European Centre for River Restoration
ECRR
The ECRR is a European network based on a framework of national networks (national centres for river restoration) whose mission is to enhance and promote river restoration and sustainable river management throughout Europe, to disseminate information on river restoration experiences and approaches and to foster the establishment of national river restoration networks in as many European countries as possible.
ID: 598486033693-78
Lobbying Activity
Response to Protecting biodiversity: nature restoration targets
19 Aug 2022
River restoration is an integral part of sustainable water management encompassing a large variety of ecological, physical, spatial and management measures and practices. Structures in rivers act as a barrier for water flow, sediment transport and river habitat connectivity. Their removal is a nature-based solution to restore local river morphology, resulting in a return to natural functioning for water flow and sediment dynamics and river wildlife. No other mitigation measures, for example fish (by) passes, can do this. Removal leads to the rapid restoration of fauna and flora that have been suppressed since the structures in question were first built.
The ECRR’s opinion is that, to be able to achieve the target of 25.000 km free-flowing rivers by 2030 defined in the proposal, dam and barrier removal should, as a restoration measure, be integrated into the (inter)national River Basin Management Plans and (inter)national strategies, policies and planning. The ECRR therefore believes that the ‘Regulation on nature restoration’ should include:
• (Development of) practical metrics for free-flowing rivers, concrete prioritisation tools and pragmatic guidance for barrier removal;
• Development of an action plan to prioritise removal of dams that are obsolete or have insignificant benefits to society;
• Redirection of finances to make funds available for barrier removal as part of the third River Basin Management Plans of the EU Water Framework Directive;
• Status reports delivery on the progress of dam and barrier removal, including presenting the positive benefits of removals.
As part of the European Commission’s ‘EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030’, the recently published ‘Guidance on Barrier Removal for River Restoration’ states that full river-connectivity is recognised to have four dimensions. The ECRR supports that the EC’s proposal primarily focuses efforts on barriers to longitudinal and lateral connectivity and mainly interprets ‘free-flowing rivers’ as surface waterbodies that are not impaired by artificial barriers and not disconnected from their floodplains.
The ECRR supports that the EC guidance preliminary introduces general principles and concepts, such as ‘river functional units’, to guide Member States in the development of projects and programmes for the restoration of connectivity. However, the ECRR would like to emphasise that the development of concrete pragmatic methods and tools to make the ‘free-flowing river’ concept operational is still an open task and several questions require answers, referring to what is mentioned in the guidance document:
‘The target should therefore be interpreted as aiming to achieve stretches of free flowing-rivers (total absence of artificial obstacles) within a network of fully continuous rivers (WFD – barriers taken down or adapted to allow the achievement of good ecological status)’
In 2022-2023, the ECRR will continue its strategic priority of river continuity restoration, recognizing the importance of free-flowing freshwater ecosystems, based on a considerable body of evidence and realised benefits, some of which can be found here:
• The River Continuity Survey, a Europe-wide survey carried out in 2021 on the availability of national policies, principles, plans, and best practices of river continuity and natural process restoration.
• RiverWiki, an interactive database hosted by the ECRR for sharing river restoration knowledge, one of the key outputs from the EU LIFE+ RESTORE project, containing at present more than 1,400 river restoration case studies from 31 countries.
The ECRR is confident that this body of knowledge and experience will support the European Commission and the Member States in achieving the target of 25,000 km of restored free-flowing rivers by 2030.
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