intEgrated protection and Restoration apprOaches for natUral Lake Ecosystems

EUROLakes, a Horizon Europe Mission Innovation Action project, will address numerous pressures negatively impacting the good ecological status of European lakes by proposing an innovative, holistic, and science-based approach to the protection and restoration of European natural lakes and their ecosystems. The project will achieve this by building on the 4 Returns Framework for landscape restoration (4RF), a practical methodology for looking for long-term solutions at the landscape level, aiming to achieve 4 Returns (inspiration, social, natural, and financial returns) through 5 elements – a landscape partnership, shared understanding, landscape vision and collaborative planning, taking action, and monitoring and learning. It will establish local communities of practice and together with them co-develop and demonstrate novel and integrated protection and restoration solutions, focusing on nature-based solutions (NBS) in three demonstrations areas – lake Vico, Italy, lake Bistreţ, Romania, and lake Dümmer, Germany. It will also show their long-term potential by building local capacity in 3 replication sites throughout Europe.

EP was responsible for the successful setting-up of the project and will be the leader of Work Package 7: Communication, Dissemination, Synergies and Policymaking and Work Package 8: Ethics, Data management and ESG.