Rivers are the arteries of the European landscape, flowing from source to sea across many international borders and connecting freshwater wetlands such as lakes, floodplains, swamps and marshes. Healthy rivers and lakes are essential to achieving the aims of the European Green Deal to create a healthier, safer, carbon-neutral society and restore nature. 

Less than 40% of Europe’s rivers and lakes are currently healthy, and fewer than 30% meeting pollution standards. Harmful agricultural practices, particularly the intensive use of nutrients and pesticides, continue to be the most significant pressure on water, with harmful impacts for people and nature.  

European rivers are the most fragmented in the world. This loss of connectivity is a leading cause of poor river health with an estimated 150,000 obsolete barriers clogging Europe’s rivers and new barriers threatening remaining pristine ones.  

Member States of the EU are required to achieve good health for these waters by 2027 at the very latest under the EU’s most important water protection law, the Water Framework Directive. Instead, a lack of ambition and investment by most countries is leading to a growing water crisis in Europe. Meanwhile, the newly enacted EU Nature Restoration Law is an opportunity to restore the health of rivers and lakes to benefit both people and nature. 

We aim to protect and restore our healthy rivers and lakes by supporting the development, implementation and enforcement of the EU’s freshwater laws and defending against efforts to weaken them. To bolster our efforts, we mobilise citizens to protect healthy water by using our advocacy networks, informing them on policy developments. 

With our members and partners, we develop, demonstrate and stimulate the scaling up of innovative, nature-based solutions for protecting and restoring rivers and lakes. This includes accelerating the growing number of barrier removals in Europe, by capacitating civil society and governments to meet policy objectives such as the Nature Restoration Law’s free-flowing rivers target.  

Our Initiatives

Our Impact

• We helped enact a European target to restore 25,000 km of river by 2030 as part of the EU Nature Restoration Law.  
• We are spearheading the removal of river barriers with our members and partners, including Dam Removal Europe, while working to prevent new ones on our remaining free-flowing rivers. 
• We are the leading voice fighting for healthy European waters, together with the Living Rivers Europe coalition, and succeeded in our #ProtectWater campaign to maintain the strong ambitions of the Water Framework Directive. 
• We are working to make river management across Europe more effective, from establishing active transboundary cooperation between Slovakia and Ukraine, to advocating with the UN Water Convention in the Iberian Peninsula for greater transparency and inclusivity. 
• We are connecting a growing number of citizens with their rivers by co-organising a bi-annual Walking Rivers Day with our member CIREF. 
• We lead the Horizon EUROLakes project that aims to safeguard and restoring European natural lake ecosystems, using the 4 Returns Framework for landscape restoration.