The goal of the ALFAwetlands is to improve the geospatial knowledge base of wetlands, to evaluate pathways of wetland restoration that incorporate a co-creation process, and to provide information and indicators for sustainability to maximise climate change mitigation, biodiversity and other benefits.
ALFAwetlands improves the tentative wetland map based on available EU and other European and global data to be more consistent, comprehensive, and accurate than currently available European wetland maps, via multiscale thematic GIS data, national and regional scientific research and data platforms, governmental bodies, and non-governmental organisation (NGO). Therefore, remote sensing, GIS data and state-of-the-art machine learning models are used to produce detailed maps of wetland types, organise management for Living Labs (LL) and wetland-rich catchments and produce priority lists and maps for wetland restoration.
ALFAwetlands is carried out at local, regional, national and EU levels. At the local level, LLs support and integrate interdisciplinary and multi-actor research on ecological, environmental, economic, and social issues.To scale up experimental data from LLs, Models are utilised to gain an understanding of the potential impacts of upscaled wetland restoration options on biodiversity and ecosystem services provision, as well as changes on the provision at the EU level for various policy-relevant time periods and the most policy-relevant climate change mitigation and biodiversity targets.
The role of Wetlands International Europe is to maximize the impact of the project among a wide range of relevant stakeholders and target audiences, via dissemination, communication, knowledge exchange, and exploitation of outcomes at local, national and European levels. We support the uptake and upscaling of exploitable outputs, advocating for and supporting evidence-based policymaking through events, workshops and training. In addition, a best practice for wetland restoration will be developed, as a reference tool for cost-effective implementation of wetland restoration policies.
Duration: 06/2022-11/2026
Funded by European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programe under grant agreement No 101056844 (HORIZON-CL5-2021-D1-01-08)
Field sites: 9 living labs in various European countries
| Partners | Short name | Country |
| International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis | IIASA | Austria |
| European Wilderness Society | EWS | Austria |
| Research Institute Nature and Forest | EV INBO | Belgium |
| Society for ecological restauration Europe | SERE | Belgium |
| University of Tartu | UTARTU | Estonia |
| Luke – Natural Resources Institute | LUKE | Finland |
| Finnish Meteorological Institute | FMI | Finland |
| French National Center for Scientific Research | CNRS | France |
| National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment | INRAE | France |
| Michael Succow Foundation | MSF | Germany |
| Latvian State Forest Research Institute | LSFRI SILAVA | Latvia |
| Wetlands International European Association | WIEA | Netherlands |
| Ecological and Forestry Applications Research Centre | CREAF | Spain |
| University of Barcelona | UB | Spain |
| Stockholm University | SU | Sweden |
ALFAwetlands Annual Meeting may 2022 in Toulouse visiting the Living Lab France sites.
More information can be found on the ALFAwetlands website or their X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook page.