About the Stakeholder Workshop

REFORM Stakeholder Workshop on River Restoration to Support Effective Catchment Management
Brussels, 26–27 February 2013
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26 Feb 2013 to 27 Feb 2013
Brussels, Belgium

The technical and interactive Stakeholder Workshop on River Restoration to Support Effective Catchment Management will be held on 26–27 February 2013 at the Hotel Silken Berlaymont in Brussels. This workshop will be an important milestone for the REFORM project. The first results of REFORM will be presented and invited experts will have the opportunity to give feedback.

The workshop is planned as an interactive event with breakout sessions on different topics and the different types of rivers and pressures across Europe. This interactive format will allow stakeholders to provide feedback on the tools to be developed and the key problems REFORM should address to support the development of River Basin Management Plans.

The target group for this event includes experts involved in river basin management planning and participants with a good technical understanding of the methods used in their respective countries to assess hydromorphological alterations, their ecological impacts, and restoration measures that can reverse or mitigate these.

Specifically, it should serve as a platform for consultation and exchange between REFORM scientists, European technical experts working on river degradation and restoration, and members of the WFD CIS WG A Ecological Status (ECOSTAT).

Please note that the event will allow for a maximum of 100-120 participants.

The workshop will include presentations on the following:

  • An overview of the initial outcomes of REFORM to support the drafting of the 2nd River Basin Management Plans
  • Feedback on assessment methods and measures for river restoration in the 1st River Basin Management Plans
  • Methods for understanding the root causes of degradation and specifying the expected outcome of restoration
  • Reporting on tools for assessing the effectiveness of restoration for river basin planning considering project scale and catchment status
  • Discussion of a European multi-scale ecohydromorphological assessment framework (prioritisation of assessments in different scales)
  • Knowledge sharing on hydromorphological degradation and restoration 
  • Dissemination of information about related European research projects and activities and their relationship to REFORM

Breakout sessions for interactive discussion will address the following themes:

  • Highland/midland river systems
  • Lowland river systems
  • Mediterranean river systems
  • Unraveling the impact of hydromorphological pressures in multiple-pressure settings
  • Designing programmes of measures
  • Dealing with heavily modified water bodies