This handbook by Ecologic Institute is intended to provide the reader with the necessary information how to guide the participatory development of a River Basin Adaptation Plan. The handbook begins with more general contextual information about the BeWater project before highlighting the importance of adaptation, the state of the art in river basin planning, society's role in the process and finally the need for resilient social-ecological systems. The handbook is available for download.

Global change and socio-economic developments are affecting the availability of and access to fresh water for drinking, agriculture, ecosystems and industrial activities. These evolving conditions are posing challenges for the optimisation of freshwater supply and demand and highlight an urgent need to adapt current water management strategies and practices towards more integrated approaches in river basins. As a response, the BeWater project provided innovative tools to facilitate the adaptation of river basins to global change via an active engagement of the local societies. The handbook is available for download.

The BeWater approach developed within the project focused on creating a shared definition of what challenges needed to be targeted in the basin and then developing, assessing and prioritising a range of potential water management options to address these points along with pathways for their implementation.

Throughout the design of the adaptation plans the BeWater project team identified common aspects and needs, as well as barriers and facilitators in the design and future implementation of adaptation plans. These lessons learnt have been synthesized by Ecologic Institute and colleagues form the FP7 BeWater consortium in a handbook for drafting adaptation plans.