A report published on Tuesday 25 October by the European Environment Agency (EEA) states that ensuring European rivers and lakes are in a good ecological condition improves the quality of life in urban areas, and that more should be done to make cities more resilient when it comes to the impact of climate change because healthy water mitigates this impact.
The “Rivers and Lakes in European Cities: Past and Future Challenges” report evaluates the successful strategies and measures taken at a local level, which are likely to help provide an example for urban planning and approaches to adopt for transforming urban conurbations into resilient cities at the social and environmental level.
The report is backed up by case studies and shows that improvement in the quality of urban wastewater treatment and the introduction of regeneration projects in 17 European cities have helped to bring these rivers and lakes back to life through the reconstruction of ecosystems, and have also helped to make cities greener, more recreational, smarter and sustainable. Nonetheless, there are still a number of challenges.
The EEA calls for full implementation of EU environmental legislation and highlights the framework directive on water, the flood management directive and the Habitats directive. It also recommends that the authorities responsible for urban planning take more robust adaptation measures.
The report can be consulted at:
http://www.eea.europa.eu/downloads/1a597e74f8064c7ea581b136fef92db2/1477387052/restoring-european-rivers-and-lakes.pdf (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)