The stories we tell about water: reflections on science, policy and restoration in Europe
By Freshwater Blog editor Rob St John.
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Sit beside a river and it is hard not to be moved. Water flows, light flickers, birdsong echoes. The problem is that freshwater ecosystems have become increasingly disconnected from our everyday lives. Across Europe, rivers, streams, peatlands and wetlands have been degraded, straightened and drained for so long that most people have no living memory of how lively they once were.
Ecologists have a name for this phenomenon: shifting baseline syndrome. Each generation comes to accept the degraded ecosystems it inherits as normal, however diminished, and sets its expectations accordingly. What we no longer remember, we no longer miss; and what we no longer miss, we no longer protect. This quiet, intergenerational forgetting is one of the most significant structural obstacles to freshwater restoration in Europe, and it sits close to the heart of why policy ambition and ecological reality remain so persistently far apart.
I’ve spent the past four years making the MERLIN podcast. The project itself – a Horizon 2020 collaboration working across Europe to scale up freshwater restoration through Nature-based Solutions – has impacted both landscapes and law. The final podcast episodes released this month capture that double register. The penultimate episode is a candid Brussels panel discussion with WaterLANDS, SpongeScapes, SpongeWorks and EU policy makers, recorded at a pivotal moment in the implementation of the Nature Restoration Regulation. The final episode takes the conversation outside to a cold Belgian riverbank in the Scheldt catchment, where project coordinator Sebastian Birk and Ellis Penning reflect on what restoration looks – and feels – like after four years of work.
Across sixteen episodes I’ve spoken with ecologists, farmers, policymakers, economists, activists and community organisers from across Europe. What follows are some reflections on what that process has taught me – and what it might suggest for others working at the confluence of freshwater science, policy and communication.
Shifting from deficit to dialogue
The traditional model of science communication – produce knowledge, translate it, hope it changes public behaviour – was already under strain before the current political moment made its limitations unavoidable. Facts rarely speak for themselves in a new media age. Instead, people tend to make sense of new information through a complex and hyperconnected set of values, identities and preconceptions. A greater depth of knowledge, on its own, rarely shifts contested debates. Research on this topic is now three decades old and one conclusion is repeated: the reason this ‘deficit’ model persists is that it remains easier to produce information than to influence the cultural and political conditions in which it is received.
But the societal role of science is vital. What the legislative battles around the Nature Restoration Regulation revealed was just how actively and strategically scientific information can be contested by lobbyists. Analysis led by Guy Pe’er and colleagues found that inaccurate claims about food security and agricultural livelihoods spread rapidly during the critical legislative window, outpacing scientific rebuttal.
This is a pattern now recognisable across environmental policy debates. Researchers at the Centre for Countering Digital Hate have documented a broader shift in the tactics of organised opposition, away from outright denial of ecological harm and towards attacks on the credibility and desirability of solutions. The NRR campaign was a textbook example of this contemporary trend. The question for the scientific community is no longer whether to engage in public debate, but how quickly and how strategically it is willing to do so.
Arguably, then, the key obstacles to freshwater restoration in Europe are not primarily scientific. They are social, political and financial – shaped by entrenched interests, policy incoherence and a public imagination in which freshwaters have been rendered largely invisible. Communication, in this new media and political landscape, cannot simply be about informing. It has to help create the conditions in which environmental science can be acted on by both people and politicians. That means being willing to communicate, in public and at the right moment, when policy is failing to match its own commitments.
As such, science communicators need to acknowledge the place-based differences in how communities understand and value freshwaters; and to open spaces for listening and sharing in sometimes-tricky conversations. Embracing this shift from deficit to dialogue in how science circulates in the world is not a straightforward process, but it’s one that can help build trust, legitimacy and support in making restoration projects successful.
Building a communication ecosystem
If communication is to help foster positive change in the world, it has to be designed with intention. Different audiences don’t need simplified versions of the same message; they need different kinds of information, support and guidance depending on their needs and contexts.
In MERLIN, policymakers working on National Restoration Plans received a web app mapping restoration potential across Natura 2000 sites. Practitioners in agriculture, hydropower and other sectors got tailored guidance, translated and adapted for their own contexts – because the argument that will influence a Basque hydropower manager is not the same argument that will impact a Scottish land agent. The general public encountered before-and-after visualisations that help make ecological change visible without requiring technical knowledge. The MERLIN Academy offers open, certificated courses designed to outlast the project itself.
Part of the value of these tools is in how they connect. What emerges is something closer to a communication ecosystem: a network of entry points and pathways through which different people can find their way toward the underlying science. A podcast listener follows a thread to a policy brief; the brief leads to an infographic; the infographic opens onto the data. Taken together, the approach suggests a shift from communication as a set of deliverables toward something more like an ongoing public good, designed not just for now, but for years to come.
Making the case for storytelling
Storytelling still makes some scientists uneasy, as though narrative necessarily means a dilution of rigour. But evidence increasingly suggests the opposite. Stories are how people process complexity, build memory and, crucially, sustain emotional and political engagement over time.
Accordingly, in the MERLIN podcast I’ve aimed to amplify the small stories of people and place that shape freshwater restoration across Europe. One episode moves from dam removals in the Basque Country to training programmes in the Scottish Forth catchment, wildflower restoration along the Emscher, flood recovery in a Bosnian peatland and floodplain restoration on the Danube. These place portraits rarely offer tidy conclusions. Instead they are accounts of negotiation, uncertainty and persistence. Another episode centres community – a watershed in Israel shared across political and religious divides, German citizen scientists becoming ecological monitors, communities beginning to campaign for dam removals – showing how the social foundations of restoration are formed.
Episode 11, in which four early-career MERLIN researchers speak openly about what it means to work for ecosystems in a time of loss, touches something that technical communication rarely reaches. The researchers all speak about the importance of hope, not in grand policy outcomes, but in a restored floodplain, a returning fish species, or a farmer who changed their mind. Ecological grief, then, doesn’t necessarily represent a barrier to positive change. Acknowledged and placed, it can be its catalyst.
Audio is a fertile medium for telling these stories. Podcasts are free, portable, and increasingly woven into everyday life. They allow scientists and restorationists to speak expansively and honestly, and to acknowledge uncertainty, contradictions and hope. In an era when trust in science is increasingly contested, holding these spaces to openly talk about the complexities of getting freshwater restoration done is hugely valuable.
Opening policy windows
Timing is vital to science communication. Well-crafted research that arrives after a decision has been made has a fraction of the influence it might have had six months earlier.
So-called policy windows – those moments when political change becomes possible – have tended to be treated as things that happen to the scientific community rather than things it can actively help shape. Instead, David Rose and colleagues suggest that environmentalists can anticipate emerging windows and prepare for them, respond quickly when they open unexpectedly, frame their findings in the language that decision-makers are already using, and – perhaps most importantly – continue to build knowledge and relationships during the periods when windows appear closed. That last point is the hardest but arguably the most important, given the current political environment in parts of Europe.
MERLIN’s policy briefs were written to coincide with specific windows of political possibility. The brief on the relationship between the Nature Restoration Regulation and the Water Framework Directive arrived as Member States were beginning to work out how to implement both policies together. The brief on the Common Agricultural Policy landed while debates over post-2027 reform were live. The stakeholder engagement brief was published ahead of the approaching deadline for National Restoration Plans. Each brief speaks the language of its intended reader and makes specific asks of them.
Highlighting policy incoherence and systemic barriers at the moments when decisions are being made is one of the most direct ways science can influence outcomes. As we’ve seen in MERLIN, a key part of this process is maintaining a strong and responsive voice for the environment amidst wider economic and political pressures.
Communicating beyond the grant cycle
This notion of effectively timing communication also relates to the future. Large research projects tend to communicate most intensively in the months before they end. Outputs frequently appear in a rush, often genuinely useful but designed for a single moment, and within a few years most are difficult to find and rarely consulted.
Guided by Astrid Schmidt-Kloiber and Joselyn Verónica Arreaga Espin at BOKU University in Vienna, MERLIN took a different approach: open data tools, multilingual infographics, a training academy designed to outlive the project. The COALESCE initiative’s recent recommendations for science communication across Europe reinforce this approach. Their publication states that public engagement should be built into research portfolios from the start, resourced as the professional discipline it is, and not rushed at the end of projects when the budget is almost spent.
This blog has been working on a version of that logic for sixteen years, across more than 700 articles and a readership that has grown steadily through successive research projects. Its value lies in accumulated trust – a long-term community that recognises diverse voices and understands the complexity and nuance of freshwater issues. That kind of trust has to be built slowly, and tended. It grows from communication treated as an ongoing, collective endeavour rather than an individual project deliverable.
Listening as much as telling
Trust is not only important for communication, but also in the act of listening to the diverse voices around freshwaters. Restoration is not delivered by scientists and policymakers alone. It depends on a complex web of stakeholders – farmers, communities, water managers, anglers, boaters, industries and regulators – each with different priorities, constraints, backgrounds, and ways of understanding what a freshwater ecosystem is for.
Communication that assumes a single audience – out there, waiting to be informed – will likely fail. The sectoral work within MERLIN – tailored strategies and materials for agriculture, hydropower, insurance, navigation and others – reflects a different approach. It starts from what matters to different groups of people, and builds arguments, guidance and support that speak to those concerns. Making the case for restoration to an insurer requires understanding what an insurer is worried about. Making it to a farmer requires understanding what that farmer stands to gain and lose.
In this context, the Brussels panel in Episode 15 is striking for its candour. The panel and audience acknowledge that governance structures have not kept pace with the ambition of the Nature Restoration Regulation, and highlight the challenges of mainstreaming restoration at a continental scale. That openness is a quietly radical form of communication. It signals that the story is unfinished – that the scientists and practitioners involved are not claiming to have solved Europe’s freshwater crisis, but that collective, ongoing work amid uncertainty is necessary. This acknowledgement represents an invitation for audiences to engage with complex problems more deeply.
Navigating a crisis of narrative
This is a pivotal decade for Europe’s ecosystems. Despite a rocky path to adoption, the Nature Restoration Regulation is now law, and its National Restoration Plans are being written. Thanks to projects like MERLIN, the technical tools for restoration are more developed than at any previous moment.
But these tools alone are not enough. Rebecca Solnit has written that every contemporary human crisis is, in part, a storytelling crisis. The freshwater crisis is no different. Freshwaters have been made invisible not only by physical degradation but by a failure of collective imagination. We have largely forgotten how rich, biodiverse and lively freshwaters once were, and widely accepted the diminished versions of what they have become. We are hemmed in not only by degraded ecosystems and incoherent legislation but by inadequate stories about their causes, effects and solutions. Shifting baseline syndrome is, among other things, a narrative failure. The stories we tell about freshwaters are often the stories of what is left, rather than what could be.
Robert Macfarlane’s recent work on rivers argues for new grammars of animacy – ways of speaking about water that restore a sense of it as something alive and attended to, rather than a resource to be managed or a problem to be solved. This is not simply poetic ambition. The language through which people understand their relationship to freshwaters shapes what they are willing to do to protect them. When a river becomes, in public understanding, more than a drain or a water delivery system, the politics of restoration become possible in a way they weren’t before. Podcasts exploring rivers as cross-cultural meeting-places and the voices of early-career researchers reflecting on caring for ecosystems under stress offer, in different ways, attempts to contribute to that work.
George Monbiot has argued with growing force that the widespread degradation of freshwaters is the result of specific political choices – about privatisation, agricultural subsidies, and the resourcing of regulators – that can, in principle, be unmade. This matters because it reframes the problem. Degraded rivers are not an inevitable consequence of modernity; they are the result of human decisions, which can – with imagination, collaboration and persistence – be reversed. That is the form of hope Solnit describes: not the passive optimism of expecting things to improve, but the active recognition that outcomes are not yet determined, that what people do now matters to what happens next.
The stories we tell about freshwaters are not separate from the science of restoring them. They are part of how restoration can take root in the world.
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This article is supported by the MERLIN project.
MERLIN Podcast EP.15 – How do you mainstream freshwater restoration across an entire continent?
The Nature Restoration Regulation is now European law. National Restoration Plans are being written. The targets are set. So why does transformative, large-scale ecological restoration remain so stubbornly difficult to achieve, and what would it actually take to make it happen everywhere, not just in flagship protected areas?
That question sat at the heart of a panel discussion held in Brussels in March 2026, at a joint event bringing together the EU Horizon projects MERLIN, WaterLANDS, SpongeScapes and SpongeWorks. Moderated by Ellis Penning of SpongeScapes, the panel brought together Anders Iversen and Willem Jan Goossen from the European Commission, Craig Bullock of WaterLANDS, and Sebastian Birk, coordinator of MERLIN, fresh from four years overseeing freshwater restoration work across 18 sites in very different corners of Europe.
In this episode of the MERLIN podcast we tune into that conversation, ranging across governance, finance, agricultural and environmental policy, and the challenge of building the kind of shared ecological literacy that makes transformative change possible. It is a candid, reflective and ultimately hopeful discussion, held at a moment when the tools and evidence for restoration have never been better, and the pressure to act has never been greater.
You can also listen and subscribe to the podcast on Spotify, Amazon, and Apple Podcasts. Stay tuned for the final episode of the MERLIN podcast very soon!
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This article is supported by the MERLIN project.
Asterix the insect: the caddisfly in a knockout contest
A small, easily overlooked insect from the Austrian Alps has found itself in an unlikely global contest this week.
The Asterix caddisfly (Ecclisopteryx asterix) has been selected as one of 64 species competing in the Indianapolis Zoo’s Uproar Conservation Challenge, an online vote where the public decides which species advances, round by round. The knockout tournament format means that each win brings both attention and funding to the species.
At first glance, the idea of pitching a freshwater insect against more charismatic contenders may seem a little lopsided. Caddisflies are not obvious crowd-pullers. They are small, often cryptic, and spend much of their lives underwater. But their ecological importance far outweighs their profile.
Caddisflies are a keystone of freshwater ecosystems. Their larvae help break down organic matter, recycling nutrients through rivers and streams. They are also a vital food source for many fish and birds, and are widely used by scientists as indicators of water quality. Where caddisflies thrive, clean, well-functioning freshwater systems usually follow.
The Asterix caddisfly itself is particularly specialised. It is found only in a handful of spring-fed streams in the southern Austrian Alps, making it highly vulnerable to disturbance. Like many alpine freshwater species, it depends on cold, clean and consistently-flowing water. Increasing pressure from water abstraction and damage to spring habitats threatens to disrupt those conditions.
There is still relatively little known about the species. Described only recently, it belongs to a small group of closely related caddisflies named after comic strip hero Asterix the Gaul and his companions. What we do know suggests a species with a narrow geographical range and specific habitat needs, which is often a warning sign in a changing climate.
This is where the challenge comes in. The Uproar Conservation Challenge, which opened for voting yesterday (16th March), will run over five rounds. Species are paired head-to-head, with only one progressing from each matchup. The further a species advances, the more conservation funding its supporting group receives – up to $10,000 for the overall winner.
For lesser-known freshwater species, this kind of visibility is rare. Conservation funding and public attention tend to gravitate towards larger, more familiar animals. Insects, despite underpinning entire ecosystems, are often left out of the conversation.
If the Asterix caddisfly is to stand a chance, it will need the support of the global freshwater community. Voting is open online, with each round lasting just a few days. In the first round, the species appears in pair 18.
The Asterix caddisfly may not have the obvious appeal of larger wildlife. But its story is a familiar one: a specialist species, confined to a shrinking habitat, quietly signalling the health of the environment around it.
Each vote for this remarkable insect represents a moment of recognition for freshwater biodiversity – a reminder that the health of rivers and streams depends on complex and beautiful webs of life which are often hidden out of sight.
What works in freshwater restoration? New research charts the course of successful projects – and exposes a farm policy gap
Europe’s rivers and wetlands are woven into the continent’s identity and economy. They supply drinking water, sustain agriculture, buffer floods and harbour a disproportionate share of its biodiversity. Yet they are also among its most damaged ecosystems, shaped by decades of drainage, river straightening, pollution and intensifying land use.
Two new publications offer a revealing snapshot of where Europe’s freshwaters are headed. One distils lessons from 18 real-world restoration projects across the continent, asking what it would take to scale up Nature-based Solutions from scattered pilots to systemic change. The other examines whether the EU’s €307bn agricultural subsidy programme is doing enough to support that ambition.
Together, they tell a story of growing practical know-how alongside a stubborn policy misalignment.
From isolated projects to continental-scale change
The first publication draws on experience from 18 demonstration cases implemented under the MERLIN project, an EU-funded initiative focused on restoring freshwater ecosystems through Nature-based Solutions. Its aim was not to evaluate ecological outcomes alone, but to understand the conditions that make restoration efforts scalable and lasting.
What emerges is less a technical manual than a framework for change. The authors identify five interlocking ‘building blocks’ that consistently underpin successful restoration.
The starting point, they argue, is a thorough review of ecological status and pressures. Projects that invested from the outset in understanding hydrology, land use and socio-economic drivers were better placed to address root causes rather than symptoms. A wetland cannot simply be reflooded if upstream drainage systems remain untouched.
But science alone is not enough. Equally important is what the authors call creating ‘narratives of the future’: shared, locally-grounded visions of what a restored landscape should look like and why it matters. In practice, this means bringing farmers, local authorities, water managers and communities into a common conversation. Where such narratives were absent, MERLIN researchers found that projects struggled to build momentum.
The publication also stresses the importance of adaptive, evidence-informed management. Freshwater systems are dynamic, and restoration projects rarely unfold neatly. The most effective ones embraced monitoring and learning, adjusting their approaches in response to new data rather than adhering rigidly to original plans.
Long-term financing proved another decisive factor. Restoration timelines often outlast political cycles and short-term funding schemes. Successful initiatives tended to blend public and private resources and think strategically about sustaining investment beyond the life of a single project.
Underpinning all of this is stakeholder engagement. Projects that treated participation as a central pillar – rather than a box-ticking exercise – were more likely to endure. Successful restoration, the MERLIN researchers suggest, is as much about governance and trust as it is about hydrology and habitat.
Crucially, none of this hinges on novel technology. Instead, it points to the importance of integration: aligning ecological science, community engagement and financial planning within complex social-ecological systems.
The CAP conundrum
If the first MERLIN publication offers a roadmap for scaling restoration, the second examines whether one of Europe’s most influential land-use policies is equipped to support it.
The EU’s Common Agricultural Policy will direct €307bn to agriculture and rural areas between 2023 and 2027. Given that farming practices – particularly drainage, river modification and nutrient runoff – are among the main drivers of freshwater degradation, the CAP should in theory be a central lever for change.
The reality, the authors find, is patchier than that.
Analysing CAP Strategic Plans submitted by EU member states, the MERLIN researchers map how different funding instruments relate to freshwater restoration. These instruments range from baseline environmental ‘conditionality’ rules and voluntary eco-schemes to rural development measures and investment funding.
While examples of good practice exist, interventions directly targeting key freshwater pressures remain limited in scope. Measures to reduce the impacts of agricultural drainage, restore wetland and floodplain connectivity, and increase water retention at landscape scale are present in many plans, but often peripheral. In many cases, they are add-ons rather than priorities.
The result is a patchwork. Some countries have embraced more ambitious water-focused schemes; others have taken a cautious approach. Overall, the authors conclude, successive CAP reforms have been incremental – and well short of transformative – on environmental objectives.
Ambition meets reality
Both publications sit within the wider context of the EU’s environmental agenda, including the European Green Deal and the Nature Restoration Regulation, which set bold targets for recovering degraded rivers, wetlands and floodplains.
Yet the research points to a persistent gap between ambition and delivery.
On the ground, restoration practitioners are learning how to work across sectors, manage ecosystems adaptively and build local support. They are working out what it takes to embed Nature-based Solutions within complicated, working landscapes. But a key financial engine shaping those landscapes – agricultural subsidies – is not consistently pulling in the same direction.
The knowledge needed to restore freshwater systems is growing, grounded in practical experience across diverse European contexts. The barrier to transformational change for Europe’s environments is thus less about ecological uncertainty than about policy coherence.
A pivotal moment for European freshwaters
With the current CAP period running to 2027 and debate on future reforms already under way, the MERLIN publications arrive at a critical juncture. They suggest that if Europe is serious about its restoration commitments, water-focused measures will need to move from the margins of agricultural policy to its mainstream.
That could mean stronger incentives for rewetting drained land, support for floodplain reconnection, and making landscape-scale water retention a core strategy rather than a niche option.
Freshwater ecosystems tend to remain out of sight until crises like droughts, floods or collapsing species populations strike. Yet they underpin both environmental resilience and human wellbeing.
The message from this new research is sobering but not defeatist. Europe has both the scientific understanding and the practical experience to restore its rivers, streams, peatlands and wetlands. What it needs now is for policy and funding to catch up with what practitioners on the ground already know.
Read the open-access articles in full
Birk S, et al (2026) Building blocks for upscaling freshwater ecosystem restoration: Place-based strategies for a transdisciplinary challenge. In: Kaden US, et al (Eds) Wetlands in a Changing Climate: Restoring Coasts and Floodplains. Nature Conservation 62: 261-287. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.62.148938
Rouillard J, et al (2026) Does the Common Agricultural Policy 2023–2027 support the restoration of freshwater ecosystems? In: Kaden US, et al (Eds) Wetlands in a Changing Climate: Restoring Coasts and Floodplains. Nature Conservation 62: 337-354. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.62.148845
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This article is supported by the MERLIN project.
Beneath the Surface: The Future of Europe’s Lakes
Beneath the calm surfaces of Europe’s lakes, a quiet crisis is unfolding.
Once-clear waters are impacted by pollution, algae blooms and habitat loss, with nearly half of Europe’s lakes now failing to meet basic ecological standards. In this first episode of the FutureLakes podcast, we explore what’s gone wrong – and how innovation is opening new pathways to recovery.
The episode introduces FutureLakes, a three-year Horizon Europe project coordinated by the Norwegian Institute of Water Research, which is rethinking how lakes are restored across the continent. Moving beyond business-as-usual approaches, the project treats lakes as living laboratories, combining science, nature-based solutions, circular economy thinking and community engagement.
We hear from researchers behind a major global review of innovative lake restoration methods, led by Laura Härkönen of the Finnish Environment Institute. Drawing on more than 1,500 scientific studies and expert insights, the review reveals why traditional measures have fallen short and highlights promising new approaches that work with natural processes – from reducing pollution at source to recovering nutrients locked in lake sediments.
The episode then explores two contrasting demonstration sites: the Marker Wadden nature islands in the Netherlands, where biodiversity has rebounded at scale, and Denmark’s Lake Ormstrup, where nutrient-rich sediments are being removed and reused in agriculture.
Together, these stories show that restoring Europe’s lakes is possible – but it requires time, ambition and collaboration.
Tune in to find out how FutureLakes will drive this process forward in the coming years.
Across Europe, rivers, wetlands and floodplains have been quietly pushed to the brink. Straightened, dammed, drained and polluted, freshwater ecosystems are now among the most degraded environments on the continent. Yet a growing movement of scientists, policymakers and financiers argues that restoring them is not just an environmental necessity, it is an economic and social one too.
Two recent publications from the EU MERLIN project set out an ambitious vision: to scale up freshwater restoration across Europe and unlock the funding needed to make it happen. Together, they offer a glimpse of what a continent-wide transformation might look like, and the formidable barriers that stand in the way.
From scattered projects to continent-wide change
For decades, freshwater restoration in Europe has largely taken place in isolated pockets: a re-meandered stream here, a wetland revived there. While valuable, these projects have been too small and fragmented to reverse widespread ecological decline.
The new MERLIN European Scalability Plan argues that this approach is no longer sufficient. If Europe is to meet its environmental commitments – including biodiversity targets and water quality goals – restoration must happen at a fundamentally different scale.
That means moving beyond one-off projects towards coordinated, strategic interventions across entire river basins. It also requires integrating restoration into sectors where it has often been overlooked, such as agriculture, urban planning and infrastructure development.
The report calls for a shift in mindset: restoration should not be treated as a niche environmental activity, but as core public infrastructure which is as essential, in its own way, as roads or energy systems.
Why restoring freshwaters matters
At first glance, restoring freshwaters may seem like an ecological concern. But the benefits of restoration can extend far beyond biodiversity.
Healthy freshwater systems can reduce flood risks by reconnecting rivers to their floodplains, allowing excess water to spread out rather than surge downstream. They can improve water quality, support agriculture, store carbon and provide recreational spaces for communities.
In a climate emergency era, such Nature-based Solutions are increasingly seen as cost-effective alternatives – or complements – to engineered infrastructure. Instead of building ever-higher flood defences, for example, restoring wetlands upstream can help absorb and slow floodwaters naturally.
Yet despite these advantages, restoration has struggled to gain traction at scale. The reasons are not only technical, but also financial and institutional.
The restoration funding gap
A second policy brief, produced jointly by MERLIN with partner initiatives REST-COAST, SUPERB and WaterLANDS, focuses on this key question: how to pay for large-scale restoration.
The short answer is that current European funding systems are not fit for purpose.
At present, most restoration projects rely heavily on public grants, which are often short-term, competitive and fragmented across different programmes. This makes long-term planning difficult and limits the size of projects that can be undertaken.
Private investment, meanwhile, remains limited. Unlike renewable energy or transport infrastructure, restoration projects rarely generate clear, predictable revenue streams. For investors, they can appear complex, risky and unfamiliar.
The result is a persistent funding gap, formed despite widespread recognition of the need for restoration, and hampered by insufficient resources to deliver it.
Making freshwater restoration investable
To bridge this gap, the new policy brief calls for a fundamental rethink of how freshwater restoration is financed.
One key idea is to make projects more attractive to private investors. This involves standardising how projects are designed and measured, so that their benefits can be clearly demonstrated and compared.
For example, a restored wetland might reduce flood damage costs, improve water quality and enhance biodiversity. If these benefits can be quantified and, crucially, monetised, they become easier to incorporate into financial models.
Blended finance which combines public and private funding is another important tool. Public money can be used to reduce risks for investors, for instance by covering early-stage costs or providing guarantees. This, in turn, can help unlock larger pools of private capital.
There is also a push to better communicate the economic value of restoration. Rather than framing projects solely in environmental terms, proponents argue that they should be seen as investments in societal resilience: protecting infrastructure, economies and communities from climate impacts.
Finding space for restoration in European policy
While funding is a major challenge, both documents emphasise that policy alignment is also critical.
Europe has a dense and interconnected web of environmental policies, from water management to agricultural subsidies. But these are not always well coordinated, and in some cases they can even work at cross purposes.
For example, agricultural policies may incentivise land use practices that degrade waterways, while environmental programmes attempt to restore them. Without better alignment, efforts risk cancelling each other out.
The MERLIN reports highlight upcoming EU policy cycles as key opportunities. Reforms to agricultural funding, water management plans and new environmental legislation could all be used to embed restoration more firmly into mainstream decision-making.
The message is clear: scaling up restoration is not just about more money, but about using existing systems more effectively.
The need for scale and speed
A key theme running through both documents is the need for urgency.
Incremental progress, the MERLIN researchers argue, will not be enough. The scale of freshwater degradation combined with the accelerating impacts of the climate emergency demands a step change in both ambition and delivery.
This raises difficult questions. Can complex, locally specific restoration projects really be standardised and scaled without losing their effectiveness? Will private investors embrace a sector that has traditionally been seen as uncertain and slow to deliver returns? And can policymakers align diverse and often competing interests across sectors and countries?
There are no easy answers. But what is increasingly clear is that business-as-usual is not sustainable.
Green shoots for ambitious freshwater restoration
Despite the challenges, there are signs of momentum. Nature-based Solutions are gaining prominence in climate and economic debates, and the idea of investing in ecosystem restoration is moving from the margins towards the mainstream.
If the vision set out by the MERLIN project is realised, Europe’s freshwaters could look very different in the decades to come. Rivers which are less constrained and more resilient; wetlands which act as sponges for carbon and floodwaters: systems which are better able to support both nature and people.
But achieving that vision will require more than good intentions. It demands coordinated action across science, policy and finance, and a willingness to rethink how society values the natural systems on which it depends.
The question is no longer whether restoration is needed. It is whether European water managers, policy makers, scientists and environmental organisations can organise themselves to deliver it at the scale – and speed – required.
Read more
Mobilising Diverse Funding for Nature Restoration in Europe
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This article is supported by the MERLIN project.
Europe’s rivers, streams, floodplains, and wetlands are among the continent’s most valuable natural assets. They deliver clean drinking water, support fisheries and recreation, help buffer floods and droughts, and are home to astonishing levels of biodiversity.
However, decades of pollution, channelisation, drainage and habitat loss have pushed many European freshwater systems into steep decline. Despite decades of policy commitments under the EU Water Framework Directive and the more recent Nature Restoration Regulation, progress on restoring these ecosystems has been painfully slow.
Two new policy briefs from the EU-funded MERLIN project paint a hopeful but urgent picture. They reveal not only how Nature-based Solutions (NbS) can deliver real benefits on the ground, but also how freshwater restoration can move from isolated local projects to large-scale strategic action aligned with Europe’s climate, biodiversity, and rural development goals. The findings matter not only to scientists and policymakers but also to communities and businesses who rely on healthy waters for their livelihoods and well-being.
The ripple effects of freshwater Nature-based Solutions
One of the central messages from MERLIN is that well-designed Nature-based Solutions hold significant potential to help mainstream freshwater restoration. When implemented thoughtfully and monitored rigorously they can deliver measurable environmental, social and economic benefits. However, until now a major barrier to scaling NbS has been the lack of consistent, comparable evidence documenting what works, where, and why.
MERLIN tackled this problem head-on by developing a systemic monitoring framework. The researchers worked with eighteen freshwater and wetland restoration projects across Europe, from the lowlands of the Rhine to the floodplains of the Tisza, to capture not just ecological outcomes but also societal and economic dimensions. The approach uses thirteen policy criteria aligned with the European Green Deal to assess outcomes such as biodiversity net gain, flood and drought resilience, climate regulation, economic impacts, and human wellbeing.
What emerges from this work – reported in the first MERLIN policy brief – is a clearer picture of NbS performance in freshwaters. On environmental criteria such as biodiversity and climate regulation the evidence is strong and consistently positive. Projects that rewet floodplains, restore natural river dynamics, or reconnect streams with their floodplains generally saw improvements in habitat quality and ecosystem function. These changes, in turn, support species recovery and build resilience to the intensifying impacts of the climate emergency.
But the picture is nuanced. Socio-economic outcomes were harder to capture, partly because such effects occur over broader spatial scales and longer timeframes. For example the benefits of reduced flood risk or enhanced recreation may take years to fully materialise, and often depend on factors far from the restoration site itself. Economic indicators tied to sectors like agriculture or tourism were also less consistently reported.
Despite these challenges, the systematic monitoring revealed key interactions between ecological and social outcomes. In Hungary’s Tisza floodplain project, for example, measures such as rewetting combined with sustainable grazing showed how ecological gains could be paired with livelihood benefits. And bringing communities closer to nature enhanced inclusivity and generated broader support for restoration.
Importantly, the MERLIN monitoring also exposed trade-offs. In some cases water quality worsened in the short term as sediments and nutrients were mobilised by restoration activities. Agricultural land was temporarily taken out of production in order to restore wetlands. These findings highlight how honesty from restoration managers about costs and risks can help build trust to support more inclusive decision-making.
Upscaling freshwater restoration across Europe
If the restoration benefits of Nature-based Solutions can be significant, then the question becomes how to scale them up beyond a patchwork of isolated experiments. The second MERLIN policy brief offers a structured pathway for doing just that.
At its heart is the idea that freshwater restoration must be more than a series of local projects. Instead restoration should form part of coherent regional planning that aligns with broader policy goals and unlocks more strategic investment. The brief identifies five dimensions of upscaling: geographic scope; integration of multiple goals; stakeholder engagement; funding; and long-term planning.
The MERLIN method for Regional Upscaling Plans unfolds in three steps. First, a gap analysis assesses existing restoration efforts to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Second, an optimisation strategy is developed that tailors solutions to regional needs and priorities across multiple objectives. Finally, stakeholders co-create a shared vision and actionable plan.
This structured approach bridges a familiar gap in environmental policy: between high-level ambition and on-the-ground delivery. A case study from the Netherlands reveals how the Room for the Rhine programme has shifted from piecemeal flood protection projects into a long-term landscape transformation that improves safety, enhances biodiversity habitat and benefits local communities. A similarly ambitious effort in Germany’s Emscher basin has transformed what was once an industrial wastewater system into a vibrant near-natural river landscape.
The brief also highlights emerging national initiatives such as Denmark’s Green Denmark Agreement which commits billions to rewetting farmland, boosting forest cover, and embedding carbon taxation. In Hungary, the WWF’s visionary 2050 roadmap for the Tisza River aims to restore floodplains while supporting sustainable land practices.
Why this matters now for people and nature
The idea of restoring Europe’s freshwater systems can sound like a long-term, abstract endeavour to the public. But the stakes are high and time is running out. Floods and droughts are become more extreme as the climate warms. Clean water is increasingly precious. Nature-based Solutions offer a way to protect communities while supporting jobs and healthier environments. Sound monitoring and strategic planning are essential to translate that potential into reality.
For scientists, the MERLIN findings offer valuable evidence that can strengthen future restoration design and evaluation. By demonstrating how to bring environmental, social and economic metrics into a common framework the project helps to break down silos that have long hindered holistic assessment. This creates a stronger basis for future research, adaptive management and innovation.
For policymakers the implications are clear. Funding and governance structures must support coordinated, large-scale action not just local interventions. Regional Upscaling Plans that align with EU Green Deal objectives can help unlock cross-sector investment, build political support, and deliver lasting benefits.
A turning point for freshwater restoration?
The MERLIN project does not claim to offer all the answers. But it does offer a pragmatic blueprint informed by real-world practice and grounded in robust monitoring. It shows that Nature-based Solutions can deliver measurable benefits and that strategic upscaling is both possible and necessary if Europe is to meet its climate and biodiversity goals.
As the continent prepares for increasingly unpredictable weather patterns and mounting ecological pressures these insights could not be more timely. Europe’s freshwaters are at a crossroads and the choices made now will determine whether rivers and wetlands are resilient and flourishing or continue to deteriorate. The evidence from MERLIN offers a compelling case for the bold, coordinated, and evidence-informed restoration of freshwater landscapes across Europe.
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This article is supported by the MERLIN project.
Finding space for freshwater restoration in flagship European policy
The EU MERLIN project has released two valuable publications this week, focusing on how freshwater ecosystems can be better protected by major European policies, and will hold a major policy event on the topic in Brussels in March.
Synergies and Tensions between the EU Nature Restoration Regulation and the Water Framework Directive
The first publication is a policy brief mapping opportunities for freshwater ecosystem protections within the EU Water Framework Directive and Nature Restoration Regulation.
Europe’s rivers, lakes and wetlands are under severe pressure, with most water bodies still failing to reach good ecological status despite two decades of action under the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD). A new opportunity has emerged with the EU Nature Restoration Regulation (NRR), adopted in 2024, which introduces legally binding targets to restore degraded ecosystems across Europe, including ambitious goals for freshwater ecosystems. Together, these two policies could mark a turning point for Europe’s freshwaters – if they are implemented in a coordinated way, according to the new MERLIN policy brief.
The NRR brings fresh momentum by setting ambitious restoration targets, such as restoring at least 25,000 km of rivers to a free-flowing state by 2030, reconnecting floodplains, and restoring wetlands. These actions directly address long-standing pressures identified under the WFD, particularly river fragmentation and habitat loss, MERLIN researchers suggest. By focusing on connectivity and catchment-scale processes, the NRR can help overcome some of the limitations that have constrained WFD implementation, especially where water managers lack influence over land use beyond the river channel.
However, the new MERLIN publication also highlights important risks. The WFD and NRR operate on different timelines, metrics and planning scales: the WFD measures ecological status; while the NRR often tracks kilometres restored or hectares rewetted. Without shared guidance, this could lead to parallel efforts that fail to reinforce one another. Tensions may also arise around land use, particularly in agricultural areas, and from limited administrative capacity and fragmented funding streams.
The key lesson for science, policy and management is clear: integration is essential. Aligning river basin management plans with national restoration plans, harmonising indicators, prioritising measures with multiple benefits, and coordinating funding – especially with agricultural policy – can turn potential conflicts into powerful synergies. Done well, the joint implementation of the WFD and NRR offers a unique chance to restore Europe’s freshwaters while strengthening climate resilience, biodiversity and societal well-being, the MERLIN researchers conclude. Read the policy brief here.
How can water-friendly farming be mainstreamed in Europe?
The second publication is a podcast exploring the relationship between freshwater restoration and farming, particularly in the context of the EU Common Agricultural Policy.
Freshwater restoration should be at the heart of how farming is managed in Europe, according to new recommendations.
Reshaping the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to support freshwater ecosystems by encouraging water-friendly farming practices is a key task, according to a team of researchers from the MERLIN project writing in a newly published policy brief. The researchers draw on cutting-edge science and fieldwork to outline a vision for water-resilient agricultural landscapes across Europe.
Our guest is one of those researchers – Josselin Rouillard from ECOLOGIC – and in this podcast we hear about how the futures of European freshwaters and farming are so closely linked, and what we can do to help them flourish.
You can also listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Freshwater, wetlands and sponge landscapes for a resilient Europe
Finally a reminder that four flagship European research projects will present their findings at a major policy event in Brussels in March 2026 to discuss the future of restoration policy and practice across the continent.
The four projects – MERLIN, WaterLANDS, SpongeScapes and SpongeWorks – will highlight key insights, practical tools and success stories from freshwater, wetland and sponge landscapes across Europe.
The event will facilitate discussion on two key themes for implementing the Nature Restoration Regulation in Europe: upscaling restoration projects; and engaging with economic sectors and financiers. It will offer a space for EU and national decision makers to engage with cutting-edge research and practice in freshwater restoration across Europe.
The policy event will be held on 10th March 2026 at Maison de la Poste in Brussels. Registration is free, both for in-person and online attendance. Interested participants should register via the MERLIN website by the 31st January 2026.
For more information, please contact the Event Secretariat: brussels2026@project-merlin.eu
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This article is supported by the MERLIN project.
Top Posts of 2025
In these early days of 2026 we continue our annual tradition of looking back at our top posts from the previous year.
Its been a productive year for the MERLIN project, with numerous publications, results and briefings released to the world, whilst negotiations over the role of freshwater restoration in European policy accelerate.
MERLIN will present their findings at a major policy event in Brussels in March 2026 to discuss the future of freshwater restoration policy and practice across the continent. The policy event will be held on 10th March 2026 at Maison de la Poste in Brussels. Registration is free, both for in-person and online attendance. Interested participants should register via the MERLIN website by the 31st January 2026.
And now looking forward to 2026, we want to say a big thank you to you, our readers and listeners, for your eyes and ears. We appreciate your support, and are always happy to hear your thoughts and ideas, whether by email or on our social media platforms.
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MERLIN Innovation Awards celebrates cutting-edge approaches to freshwater restoration at 2025 ceremony (February)
The winners of the annual MERLIN Innovation Awards – which highlight state-of-the-art solutions for freshwater restoration – were announced earlier this month. Entries from organisations across the world were assessed by an expert panel, and shortlists for the two categories – Service of the Year and Product of the Year – were compiled. Two winners were announced at a busy online ceremony on February 13th.
The winner of the MIA Service of the Year is River Cleanup, a Belgian non-profit organisation which empowers global communities to cleanup their rivers. The winner of the MIA Product of the Year is Wasser 3.0 for their innovative approach to removing microplastics from water. (read more)
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Can nature-based solutions help ‘green’ European economies? (March)
As the ongoing effects of the climate emergency and ecological crisis continue to be felt across Europe, it is clear that ‘business as usual’ in our society’s relationships to nature isn’t working. In recent years, the EU MERLIN project has worked with representatives from six key economic sectors across Europe to explore how this relationship could be fundamentally transformed, to benefit both people and nature.
MERLIN recently released six strategies exploring how the agriculture, water supply and sanitation, peat extraction, insurance, hydropower and navigation sectors can be ‘greened’ through better adoption of nature-based solutions. (read more)
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A ‘how-to guide’ for citizen scientists on small stream restoration (March)
Small streams criss-cross Europe’s landscapes: from the highest mountains to the busiest cities. However, despite offering a home to rare and special wildlife, and providing numerous benefits such as natural flood protection to people, this network of small streams can be overlooked by European environmental policy and management.
A new publication by the MERLIN project suggests that citizen science groups can help boost our understanding of small streams, offering valuable activities to help restore the ecological health and biodiversity of these valuable ecosystems. (read more)
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Can private finance help support ambitious European freshwater restoration? (April)
New sources of funding are needed to meet the needs a growing ecosystem restoration movement in Europe, according to a newly published report. In particular, ambitious restoration initiatives which help bring Europe’s freshwaters back to life require financial support from both private and public sources in order to fulfil their potential.
Researchers from the EU MERLIN project explored the potential for restoration managers to diversify how they raise funds to support their work. They highlight the need for creative thinking to address the ‘funding gap’ in a realm traditionally supported by public grant funding. (read more)
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Cabinet of Freshwater Curiosities: artistic riverine insects create colourful cases from unusual materials (May)
Many animal species are protected from predators, desiccation or disturbance by a thick shell or skin. Only few, however – leeches, midge larvae and butterfly larvae – are capable of building cases to artificially protect them from the environment. Unsurpassed as artistic architects of such artificial cases are tiny caddis larvae, which live amongst the rocks, vegetation and rubbish on river beds. These unique little creatures have developed the curious ability to use these raw materials to create colourful and unusual protective outer tubes. (read more)
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MERLIN Podcast EP.11 – Communicating why freshwater restoration is vital (May)
Restoring our natural ecosystems is a task that is never really finished: science progresses; governments change; technology advances; society shifts; funding pots appear and disappear. And all the time, our rivers, lakes, streams and wetlands are a constant; their fate determined by the choices we make about them. In a time of rapid ecological loss and the ongoing climate emergency, it can be hard to think hopefully about the future of our ecosystems.
In the new episode of the MERLIN podcast we hear from four inspirational young scientists who are helping restore Europe’s freshwaters, and with it, hope for the future of our natural world. The four scientists all work on the EU MERLIN project, but each have their own research focus. They are Miriam Colls Lozano from the University of the Basque Country, Andrea Schneider from the University of Duisburg-Essen, Viviane Cavalcanti from DELTARES and Joselyn Verónica Arreaga Espin from BOKU.
We hear about the challenges of bringing disparate communities together through freshwater restoration, fostering exchange and collaboration between different communities, thinking creatively about funding restoration in the future, and strategies for bringing the public and policy makers on board with ambitious restoration programmes. The thread that runs through all these themes is the need for good communication in fostering positive change for the future.
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Free online training on engaging people and policy-makers in freshwater restoration is launched (September)
A free new online learning module offers a wealth of information around bringing people and nature together in freshwater restoration. The module is part of the open-access Academy created by the EU MERLIN project. The MERLIN Academy offers free resources and training to support researchers, practitioners and policy makers in applying cutting-edge restoration concepts to their work. The newly-released module leads users through a series of videos, graphics, quizzes and podcasts to introduce key concepts around stakeholder engagement and governance in freshwater and wetland restoration. (read more)
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How can water-friendly farming be mainstreamed in Europe? (October)
Freshwater protection and restoration should be at the heart of how farming is managed in Europe, according to new recommendations. Reshaping the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to support freshwater ecosystems by encouraging water-friendly farming practices is a key task, say a team of researchers from the EU MERLIN project in a newly published policy brief.
The researchers draw on cutting-edge research and case studies to outline a vision for water-resilient agricultural landscapes across Europe. They highlight the value of so-called nature-based solutions such as the creation of ponds and wetlands, agroforestry, and the rotational resting of farmland in creating landscapes which support both food production and freshwater protection. (read more)
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MERLIN Podcast EP.13 – Sharing cutting-edge information on freshwater restoration in the MERLIN Academy (November)
In this podcast we take a tour of the MERLIN Academy, an online platform which offers free resources and training to support researchers, practitioners and policy makers in applying cutting-edge freshwater restoration concepts to their work.
We hear from Academy coordinator Astrid Schmidt-Kloiber from BOKU, and module leaders Erica Zaja from CEH, Gerardo Andalzua from ECOLOGIC and Kerry Waylen from the James Hutton Institute, alongside reflections from Academy user Lars Kristian Selbekk.
The interviewees emphasise the importance of sharing free, open-access information on freshwater restoration to wide audiences. They discuss the importance of nature-based solutions, financing and economics, stakeholder engagement and governance to contemporary restoration approaches.
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New approaches to financing ambitious freshwater restoration projects (December)
A key message from the MERLIN project is the need for freshwater restoration managers to embrace new forms of funding in order to mainstream their work across Europe. As we’ve explored in previous podcasts, environmental projects have long relied on grant funding from state sources. However, in order to address the magnitude of the ongoing climate emergency and ecological crises, it is clear that new forms of funding are need to underpin ambitious restoration schemes across the continent.
In this context, MERLIN have recently released the final publications in their ‘Off-the-Shelf Instruments’ series. These instruments – OTSIs for short – are accessible financial guides which introduce approaches to raising public and private finance for restoration projects. The twelve OTSIs cover both traditional sources of environmental finance – such as grant funding – alongside new and contemporary sources such as biodiversity offsetting, carbon sequestration and reward-based crowdfunding. (read more)
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You can read all our 2025 articles here – happy 2026!
Freshwater, wetlands and sponge landscapes for a resilient Europe
The landmark Nature Restoration Regulation was adopted by the European Union in August 2024 following a lengthy negotiation process. The Regulation – which compels EU member states to restore their degraded land, water and sea ecosystems by 2050 – is now entering a critical implementation phase.
The first drafts of National Nature Restoration Plans (or NNRPs) which guide this restoration work are due to be submitted in summer 2026. As a result, negotiators from environmental, agricultural, forestry and other land management organisations are meeting across Europe to develop roadmaps for each member state to reach the ambitious goals of the new legislation.
At the same time, environmental organisations have warned against the weakening of European Commission nature protections as a result of industry lobbying. Last week, a coalition including WWF, BirdLife and the European Environmental Bureau cautioned that weaker rules in the new Environmental Omnibus and the Grids Package poses serious threats to European ecosystems and public health.
In this context, four flagship European research projects will present their findings at a major policy event in Brussels in March 2026 to discuss the future of restoration policy and practice across the continent.
The four projects – MERLIN, WaterLANDS, SpongeScapes and SpongeWorks – will highlight key insights, practical tools and success stories from freshwater, wetland and sponge landscapes across Europe.
The event will facilitate discussion on two key themes for implementing the Nature Restoration Regulation in Europe: upscaling restoration projects; and engaging with economic sectors and financiers. It will offer a space for EU and national decision makers to engage with cutting-edge research and practice in freshwater restoration across Europe.
The policy event will be held on 10th March 2026 at Maison de la Poste in Brussels. Registration is free, both for in-person and online attendance. Interested participants should register via the MERLIN website by the 31st January 2026.
For more information, please contact the Event Secretariat: brussels2026@project-merlin.eu
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This article is supported by the MERLIN project.
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