MERLIN Podcast: Bringing Europe’s freshwaters back to life

Apr 09 2024 32 mins 4

MERLIN Podcast: Bringing Europe’s freshwaters back to life artwork

Europe’s freshwaters are in an alarming state. Water pollution, habitat destruction and the ongoing effects of climate change have caused significant biodiversity loss and ecological decline across the continent. There is a pressing need for major freshwater restoration projects which tackle these declines and bring rivers, streams, peatlands and wetlands back to life. MERLIN is a major European Union funded project which is investing millions of Euros to help mainstream freshwater restoration across the continent over the coming years. This podcast follows the MERLIN project in this journey. It offers a behind the scenes look at some of the continent’s most ambitious freshwater restoration projects carried out through cutting-edge aquatic science and conservation.

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Learning from the river: restoring the Danube

Apr 09 2024 37 mins

Join us on the banks of the Danube River in Austria to hear how ambitious restoration projects are helping free the river from human alterations. We meet Robert Tögel and Alice Kaufmann from viadonau and Silke Drexler from BOKU beside the river to hear about how restoring its banks and side-arms is helping benefit both people and nature. As the trio explain, this work is a process

Water, climate and farming: making space for stream restoration in Portugal

Jan 24 2024 31 mins

In this episode we explore the issues around stream restoration in the Sorraia catchment in Central Portugal. Restoration of the Sorraia river needs to be able to navigate the needs of intensive agriculture in a landscape increasingly affected by the climate crisis. Walking along the banks of the river, we meet a range of freshwater scientists, activists, farmers and policy experts

How economic thinking can help us restore Europe's freshwaters

Nov 30 2023 38 mins

In October 2023, the WWF released a major report stating that freshwater has long been significantly undervalued in global economies, leading to widespread environmental costs. The report estimates that the annual economic value of water and freshwater ecosystems globally is $58 trillion – a figure equivalent to 60% of global Gross Domestic Product (or GDP). This startling figure

Mainstreaming freshwater nature-based solutions across economic sectors

Aug 28 2023 38 mins

Nature-based solutions are a hot topic right now. So-called 'NbS' are environmental management approaches that use natural processes to help tackle socio-environmental challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, flooding, food production and health and wellbeing. The MERLIN project explores how the benefits from nature-based solutions can help foster collaborations betwee

Restoring Europe's peatlands and wetlands

May 29 2023 30 mins

Peatlands and wetlands are vital landscapes. They store carbon and so help mitigate the harmful effects of climate change, they help buffer floodwaters and naturally filter drinking water, and they are often rich habitats for biodiversity. But peatlands and wetlands have been widely drained, altered and lost across Europe as a result of human actions.This episode explores how peatl

Freshwater Restoration in Europe: Transformation, Disruption and Inspiration

Oct 20 2022 20 mins

This episode explores the big ideas that are shaping how ambitious freshwater restoration projects are being carried out across Europe. From dam removal to floodplain restoration, the European Union funded MERLIN project is investing millions of euros to disrupt and transform existing ways of carrying out freshwater restoration.But what do these keywords – transformation and disr

Introducing MERLIN // Large river and floodplain restoration on the Rhine Delta

Sep 08 2022 34 mins

In July 2022 podcast host Rob St John travelled to the Netherlands to meet MERLIN practitioners working on the project’s large river restoration sites. Over a number of hot, sunny days the team explored floodplains across the Rhine Delta which had been restored through a major project called Room for the River. Started in 1995, Room for the River worked to reconnect the Rhine wit