LIFE Project UK: wise use of floodplains – a trans-national partnership

In the past, river management in Europe has drained floodplain wetlands and isolated rivers from their floodplains. Problems such as flooding, water shortages and over-enrichment of water have been made worse in some areas by this approach. Modern thinking is that rivers cannot be managed in isolation from their floodplains, and rivers and their floodplains cannot be managed without balancing the demands put upon them by agriculture, industry, nature conservation and other interests.

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) aims to solve these problems by introducing integrated river basin management and requires EU Member States to meet new ecologically-based objectives on the quality of water. The sustainable management of floodplains, a crucial part of the water cycle, is fundamental in meeting these objectives. Member States face problems in implementing the Directive, partly because they lack experience of the practicalities of gaining the active participation of stakeholders in decision-making at a catchment scale in an operational, as opposed to a political, context. The difficulties could be compounded because the value of wetlands is not well understood by a wide range of stakeholders.

The project included an international comparison of participative methods used in different types of catchment areas for the management of wetlands. Tools were tested, produced and disseminated. It was designed to help Member States implement the WFD by demonstrating the value of floodplains and how their associated wetlands can contribute to the sustainable management of water resources within river basins. It was implemented by a trans-national partnership, involving the UK's RSPB, together with 13 other partners in six project areas in the UK and France. The project highlighted the importance of organisations and communities working together to create a holistic and sustainable approach to the management of water resources.

Various

This was a successful participatory project. The vast array of stakeholders involved at different levels in the management of wetlands led to the development of a range of tools to aid floodplain managers to implement the WFD with implications on a Europewide basis.

These tools included:

• The establishment of an international communication network between project stakeholders;
• An action plan for each area to promote options for floodplain wetland restoration;
• A series of national and European workshops, looking at changes needed in policy and practice. These were published in a report on "Opportunities and Barriers to Sustainable Management of Water";
• The creation of a website and the promotion of the findings of the project;
• The presentation of key recommendations for European policy and funding changes needed to implement the WFD at national and EU level.

The project's recommendations for floodplain management have since been fed into guidance notes to aid the implementation of the WFD, and have formed the basis of lobbying in a variety of related policy areas. According to the beneficiary, teams running floodplain catchment projects throughout Europe are using the results of this project to shape their initiatives, and work is being undertaken within the catchments targeted by the project to turn the project recommendations into reality.

Among the many projects related to stakeholder dialogue that are currently using the outputs of the project are the UK 'Invest to Save' partnership of Government agencies and NGOs project, which is seeking dialogue with communities to secure the future sustainable management of coastal habitats; and the 'Ribble Pilot Project' on public participation. Says the beneficiary: "The principles and lessons learnt have informed proposals by Defra (the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), in relation to flood-risk management, and the Environment Agency, in relation to River Basin Planning, to roll out public participation programmes across England."

Finally, the beneficiary says the methodology for a component of the UNDP/GEF Danube Regional Project with special reference to wetland and floodplain management was "directly influenced (even inspired)" by the LIFE project.

For more information go to http://ec.europa.eu/environment/life

Project Number: LIFE99 ENV/UK/000203

Title: Wise use of floodplains – a demonstration of techniques to evaluate and plan floodplain restoration

Beneficiary: The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, UK