ECRRNEWS - 2
JUNE2010
Introduction

1Introduction

Agenda1

Living North Sea Project2

II CIREF Seminar on
River Restoration

The secretariat devoted this month with taking measurements andpreparations for the seminar in July in Bucharest. This will take place on the7th and the 8th of July.
We hope that you all will enjoy reading this renewed newsletter,3

Revitalisation of Swisswaters: changed decrees
in public hearing

4

Community of Practice:‘Re-meander’

4

Kind regards,
Secretariat ECRR

Agenda
ECRR Seminar: ‘National River
Restoration Centers/ Networks’Seminar 7th and 8th of July 2010
Bucharest (Romania)
More information >Course Announcement:Modeling
habitat for fish and invertebrates with
MesoHABSIM
28th September - 01 October, 2010
Warsaw (Poland)More information >Deltas in Times of Climate Change
Conference
27 September - 01 October 2010
Rotterdam (the Netherlands)
More information >30/06/10

Water and Flood Modelling Practices
and Solutions
European Conference
28th and 29th September 2010
Crown Plaza, Reading (UK)More information >River Restoration: Fluvial-Geomorphic
and Ecological Processes
5-day shortcourse, 7-11 June 2010
Lyon/Provence (France)
More information >7th Ser Avignon Conference:
Ecological Restoration
5-day scientific conference 23-27 AugustAvignon, France (Submit before 15th of July!)More information >ECRR NEWS | 1

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Living North Sea Project
Living North Sea: Free fish migration from sea to sourceThis new collaboration between European partners from the North Sea Region
aims to solve problems related to fish migration. Diadromous fish populations inthe North Sea Region have seen major declines and it is very important that there
is an optimal “river – delta – sea” connectivity for fish to fulfill their life cycle. If
not, many threatened fish species could see further declines or even become
locally extinct. The partnership focuses on the development of knowledge ontransnational fish populations, innovation of fish passages and involvement ofothers in a varied partnership with players from several sectors and administrative
levels. Living North Sea is part funded by the European Regional Development
Fund through the North Sea Region Interreg Programme.

Pumping station “Noordpolderzijl” in the North of the Netherlands will be equipped with a fish pass during theLiving North Sea project Diadromic fish like three spined stickleback, smelt and eel will have the possibility
again to swim between the sea and fresh water in the polder (photography: Groene Zoden Fotografie)

Fish migration has independently been a major agenda item of North Sea countries
for many years. This has been brought to a head by the requirements of the EU Water
Framework Directive for Good Ecological Status in rivers and transitional waters. The
project was born out of the realization that policy and management actions for fish inany one area of the North Sea region may have consequences for other areas, andthat managers may be looking after common resources shared by many countries. The
key to successfully managing fish migration therefore lies in a transnational approach.
For example: commercial fisherman in Denmark and Flanders has caught tagged sea
trout from the River Tweed in the UK, a recreational fishery worth €22M. At this time themigratory routes of key important species are not mapped, or the regions of the North
Sea that share the management of important fish populations known. An exchange oftransnational knowledge and monitoring between the North Sea countries is of vital
importance and may even lead to more efficient delivery of measures. The projectis collaboration between 15 partners from seven countries in the North Sea region.
The partnership is a mix of Government agencies, NGO’s, Universities and ResearchInstitutes. The Project is lead by a UK NGO, the Association of Rivers Trusts.
Highlights
The Living North Sea project has the goal to promote free fish migration from sea
to source to keep our waters alive. It addresses three essential aspects for themanagement of migratory fish: migration routes, threats such as man-made barriers, andinfluencing future policy on a regional, national and international level.

The work on migratory routes will focus
on sea trout, eel and salmon, but will beapplicable to many other species. The
partnership will carry out analysis andvisualize migratory routes, populations andconsequences of management actions.
For this, new communication and mapping
tools for working and sharing data between
partners are being explored.
The second part is innovation of fishpassages. In the North Sea Region, somedeltas and estuaries are closed to fishand many more have barriers such as
dams and sluices throughout their system.
This means that many fish species likeeel, salmon and sea trout cannot reach
their breeding grounds. The partnership
focuses on the development of better andinnovative passages and implements thisin demonstration projects.
Last but not least, the dissemination ofthese findings to policy makers, local
decision makers and the public. The
Living North Sea Project puts a lot of effort
into promotion and publicity because theeffect of barriers on fish populations isoften not considered when dealing withflooding, drainage, or renewable powergeneration. Yet healthy fisheries are criticalto sustainable development and goodecological status. Intensive communication
actions intended to influence regional,
national and European policies will be
carried out. Creating new partnerships,
sharing knowledge and involvement are
key elements in the project. More will befound at the project website
www.livingnorthsea.eu
FutureThe Living North Sea Project will berunning between 2009 and 2012. Overthe next few years, the Living North Sea
project will produce results that prove
the importance of this partnership. It will
set new standards for river – delta – seaconnectivity and result in a lasting change
to water management and fishery policies.

Many fish are killed whentrying to pass a pumping station(photography: Jeroen van Herk)
Glaseel is released at an eventof the Living North Sea project inGhent, Belgium with the promise
the fish passages will be installed
when the eel is grown and want toreturn to the sea(photography: Jeroen van Herk)

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II CIREF Seminar on River Restoration
The Iberian Centre for River
Restoration (CIREF) organised
last 1st and 2nd of June, in its
headquarters of the University ofZaragoza, the II Seminar on RiverRestoration with an important
attendance and participation
success. About 150 experts on rivermanagement discussed and shareddifferent experiences, strategies andtechniques used for the recovery of
the fluvial ecosystems in the IberianPeninsula.

Field visit to the Natural Reserve of los Galachos. Photo: Edurne Martínez

Conservation and restoration of fluvial ecosystems is, without any doubt, one of today’s
big environmental challenges the Iberian Peninsula faces. Temporary and permanent
watercourses in the Iberian Peninsula are, in more or less extent, far from their optimum
ecological status. At least a third of these ecosystems are much degraded in both,their structure or water quality and 60% of wetlands and thousands of kilometres offloodplains that would help preventing damages caused by floods have been occupied byconstructions or agricultural lands.
Today’s water management model that puts “in the market” most of the natural riverflow, causes desiccation of rivers and generates serious damages to fluvial ecosystems.
Massive occupation of floodplains by agricultural land and urbanism, pollution, overexploitation of water for irrigation and lack of environmental sensitivity in the society
contribute to worsen this situation.
In this context, convinced that spreading knowledge is one of the ways to change theactual trends, CIREF organized the II Seminar on River Restoration in its headquarters ofthe Department of Geography of the University of Zaragoza, with the aim of sharing theexperiences of river restoration carried out in the Iberian Peninsula in the last months.

CENTRO IBÉRICO DERESTAURACIÓN FLUVIAL
Departamento de Geografía yOrdenación del Territorio
C/ Pedro Cerbuna, s/nUniversidad de Zaragoza
50009 Zaragoza
www.cirefluvial.com
info@cirefluvial.com

30/06/10

During the first day, river restoration experiences carried out in Aragón, Andalucía,
Basque Country, Asturias, Castilla-León, Portugal and France where presented. Otherinteresting communications about habitat modeling, erosion control, problems forfish migrations in gauging stations, application of an index to evaluate the river forest
conservation status and its development with LIDAR technology were also presented.
The technical debates were followed by an interesting field visit the following day to theNatural Reserve of Ebro River Galachos (oxbow in Spanish) where conservation andrestoration actions carried out were explained, generating interesting discussions among
the participants. The journey ended up with a refreshing descent of the Ebro River inkayaks, visiting riverforests and different
actions carried out inthe river during theconstruction of theWater Expo in 2008.
The María Moliner
assembly room in
University of Zaragoza
hosted the II CIREF
Seminar on River
Restortion. Photo: Celia
Salinas and Aldo Arranz

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Revitalisation of Swisswaters: changed decrees inpublic hearing
A part of the Ministry of Environment
has started public hearing on May 26th
2010 concerning the new decrees thathave been developed since December
2009. End of 2009 the Parliament
decided that rivers and lake shore
must become more natural. The flow
in rivers where energy is generated
should get a more natural flow pattern.
The parliament decision can be seen
as a milestone for Swiss Waters. At
present, about 40% of the waters in themiddle land are canalized, in populatedareas it is even 80%. More than 90% of
the utilised waters are used for energy
production. The downstream parts ofthose waters with energy stations havea large water level variation. The Swiss
Parliament has given 2 main directions
in water management:• Support and promotion ofrevitalisation as well securing andextensive management of waters• reduction of the negative effects ofwater level variations downstreamof energy stations, reactivation ofsediment transport and restorationof waters for migrating fish.
Source > BAFU
Translated by: Ute Menke

Community of Practice: ‘Re-meander’
In 2007 the CoP has been formed as a joint initiative.
The reason for this initiative was the fact that in the Netherlands meandering
streams have been constructed or in preparation, while reconstructed streams did
not meet the expectations. Therefore we needed knowledge, and we knew that thisknowledge could not be founded in literature, but that we could learn a lot fromeach other. This was the reason for an initiative such as the CoP Re-meander.
We started with organising meetings, you can define ‘we’ as the members. From thesemembers a group of 6 people do form the task group. They coordinate; trying to makesure that someone does take the initiative for organising events and make an inventoryof the need for knowledge. This concept of give and take seems to work well in practice;giving of own experiences, skills and knowledge and ‘taking‘ advantage from others’ theirknowledge and experiences. Also there are plenty of organisations that do want to be thehost for the CoP meetings and field trips. Furthermore, there are enough participants that
do want to discuss their projects with one another and think how to solve problems ofthemselves and those of others.
What seems to be the case in every meeting is the fact that also failures are being
shared with one another. That is a big contrast when comparing with other formal typesof communication (articles and such) where they create a distinct profile for oneself. This
is not the case for the CoP Re-meander, since the practitioners of the CoP Re-meander
face the same problems, and the members of the CoP re-meander do know that thetheory is not always in line with the reality.
The reality shows that some things may go wrong, but that not all mistakes are a problem
to the nature. Some mistakes can contribute to a positive side effect. For example a living
river with dynamic inclines where primary colonizers and Sand Martins can settle.
Therefore the field trips are crucial to come in touch with the practice and the work ofpractitioners, to see and experience the good practices and the bad practices (of whichsome contribute to positive side effects…)
Point of interest of the CoP is to document the gained knowledge. Therefore DLG gave
Alterra the assignment to conduct a handbook named: ‘ Safely Re-meander’ (Dutch title:‘Veilig Hermeanderen’).
Safely is in this case interpreted as ‘achieving the supposed objectives’, and ‘preventaccidents’. Alterra researcher-Patrick Boogaart- uses the CoP meetings to assess hisideas and concepts for in the handbook, and to control these and to gain knowledge ofcourse.
He does this to make sure that the handbook comes forth from a need- the need to learn
and to gain knowledgeAuthor: Christina Oosterhoff, original full article in Dutch available at: www.dlgwater.nl
Translator: F.M. Maharoof’
Secretariat: DLG Government Service for Land and Water Management
P.O.Box 20021, 3502 LA Utrecht, The Netherlands | www.ecrr.org
Executive secretary Mr. Wim Zeeman

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