Natural Water Retention Measures (NWRM) project: 1st Mediterranean Workshop successfully held

Experts and practitioners from the Mediterranean in a wide sense (Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Malta, Greece, Cyprus, Croatia and Turkey as a candidate country) participated in the first Mediterranean regional workshop that took place in Alcalá de Henares (Madrid) on January 28th and 29th, 2014.

The event was organized by IMDEA Water (NWRM project consortium member) and gathered, representatives from the European Commission (DG ENV), Member State water authorities (Spain, Greece, Cyprus) and Water River Basin Authorities, International organizations (IUCN, UFM), Research Institutes and organizations and consultancy companies, beyond other consortium partners. Representatives from other regional networks (Danube) and from other related European funded projects and initiatives (such as FP7 REFORM and Life+ RESTORE) participated to the event too. 

The workshop emphasised on the challenges and priorities for NWRM to deliver the objectives of the WFD and the Floods Directive, as well as other relevant EU policy initiatives. The meeting was organised around different ‘thematic’ areas in which NWRM were grouped (agriculture, forestry, SUDS, and more complex projects including different NWRM, such as river or wetland restoration) and for each of them biophysical impacts, socio-economic variables and governance and institutional concerns were considered.

Several applications of NWRM were also presented such as river restoration projects, green cover crops, wetland restoration, groundwater recharge, SUDS (stormwater drainage schemes; flood control projects; attenuation ponds; storm water lagoons; use of permeable materials; etc.), afforestation, etc. The applications presented also covered most of the countries represented in the meeting: Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal.