RESTORE4LIFE

The EU Horizon project Restore4Life (https://restore4life.eu) is developing implementation guidance for the restoration of floodplains and coastal wetlands in the Danube basin, where 70 % of floodplains and coastal wetlands have disappeared or are no longer connected rivers. However, wetlands are hotspots of biodiversity and also provide important ecosystem services, as buffering floods and droughts, retaining plant nutrients and other pollutants, as well as storing of carbon in soils.

Therefore, the restoration of blue-green infrastructure aims to strengthen biodiversity, climate resilience, ecosystem services as well as sustainable business models in wetlands. The Restore4Life project also uses transdisciplinary concepts to involve local residents and other stakeholders through a wetland education programme and several citizen science approaches, so that wetland restoration can be co-created through co-creation processes. In this context, the project is demonstrating the synergies of ecological improvements with diverse socio-economic benefits, as well as possible business models and networks based on them.

The integrative and transdisciplinary concepts developed for restoring lateral connectivity in river corridors will be tested at four demonstration sites and six monitoring sites located in Austria, Slovakia, Serbia and Romania, among others. The main focus is on visual, interactive means of communication that also promote emotional linkages to water bodies and wetlands. At all sites, the transdisciplinary project work will empower citizens and stakeholders to participate in the co-design of projects by involving them in local citizens' groups.

Finally, the technical, ecological, communicative and economic concepts developed in Restore4Life will be summarized in a user-friendly restoration tool "Restore4Life Wetland Reconstruction Accelerator", which thus combines contemporary integrative wetland management with integrative implementation guidance for social and economic transformations. To achieve these goals, a total of 31 partner institutions from 14 countries are cooperating in the collaborative Restore4Life project led by the University of Bucharest. IGB is leading a work package that supports the empowerment of interest groups and local communities to co-create restoration projects. IGB also contributes significantly to the development of concepts to establish local business models based on the sustainable economic use of restored wetlands through nature-based solutions. Previously developed methods for assessing the ecosystem services of rivers and their floodplains in international catchment areas will be applied here.

Restore4Life is part of the "Danube Basin Lighthouse" within the EU mission "Restore our ocean and waters by 2030"