Water Lives: New Scientific Horizons for Biodiversity and Water Policy

As part of the Biofresh project, the Symposium "Water Lives: scientific horizons for biodiversity and water policy" took place from 29 to 30 January 2014 in Brussels. The Symposium brought together policy makers and stakeholders from the water, energy and conservation sector, NGOs, the scientific community, and selected experts to discuss challenges in the implementation of the 2020 Biodiversity strategy and the EU Water Framework Directive. Ecologic Institute was substantially involved in the programme development and Timo Kaphengst, Senior Fellow, moderated a science-policy dialogue. A short video and the accompanying podcast gives you a flavour of what was achived.

The symposium offered the opportunity to discuss the scientific advances of the FP7 projects Biofresh  and Refresh in the light of the vision, challenges and commitments of the 2020 Biodiversity strategy and the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD). A main objective the Symposium was to find ways to better integrate freshwater biodiversity and ecosystem science into policy.

Inputs and discussion of the Symposium included the value of riparian corridors for maintaining biodiversity in a changing climate, the importance of South-Eastern Europe for freshwater biodiversity conservation (highlighted in new maps presented of EU freshwater biodiversity), and the battle against invasive alien species in freshwater ecosystems.

Timo Kaphengst moderated a science-policy dialogue with Isabelle Durance from Cardiff University and Patrick Murphy from the European Commission dealing with the question how far does the ecosystem service approach takes us in arguing for nature conservation.

This short video and the accompanying podcast Water Lives: forging a science-policy interface produced by Helen Scales, Ria Mishaal and Paul Jepson will give you a flavour of what was achived.

Key messages from the conference were summarised in a policy brief on riparian areas [pdf, 700 kB, English].