Project description
Solutions and digital tools for rapid wetland restoration
Wetlands can sequester carbon and regulate the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. However, wetlands are disappearing in Europe at an alarming rate, and less than 20 % remain in good ecological condition. The EU-funded WET HORIZONS project will advance crucial knowledge and develop new tools and methods for rapid large-scale wetland restoration, including a mobile app for the visualisation of wetland status and a decision support system for policy makers. The project will update and improve existing data available from pristine, drained and rewetted peatlands, floodplains and coastal wetlands. It will model the effects of ordinary restoration measures under diverse conditions and analyse the potential socio-economic impacts to deliver recommendations and best management practices.
Objective
Wetlands are key biodiversity hotspots that provide numerous ecosystem services such as water purification, flood control and climate change mitigation due to their capacity of sequestering carbon and modulating the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. Despite their ecological and economic importance, wetlands are disappearing at an alarming rate, and are among Europe’s most endangered ecosystems, with less than 20% remaining in good ecological condition.
WET HORIZONS will provide the critical flying start for the challenge of enhancing wetland restoration using a holistic approach. It will boost crucial wetland knowledge and develop sound tools and approaches for fast-tracking large scale restoration action.
The project will improve the current data available from pristine, drained and rewetted peatlands, floodplains, and coastal wetlands, model the effects of typical restoration measures under variable conditions, and analyze the potential socio-economic impacts, finally delivering guidelines and best management practices.
WET HORIZONS will involve citizen science for data collection and will develop digital tools for upscaling wetland restoration including an app for the visualization of wetland status and a decision support system for policy makers. This will enable to choose best pathways in wetland restoration minimizing trade-offs, including hotspot priority lists where the ecological and biodiversity benefits are greatest with minimum investment. The results will be available in open access repositories to maximize their use and outreach.
There will be a constant dialogue with policymakers and stakeholders before, during and after the project, to ground-truth the findings and ensure that the tools support country-specific decision-making processes. The results of the project will be used to promote feasible and more ambitious legislation towards protecting and restoring European wetlands to increase benefits for climate and biodiversity.
Fields of science
- engineering and technologychemical engineeringseparation technologiesdesalinationreverse osmosis
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesecologyecosystems
- social sciencespolitical sciencespolitical policiescivil society
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesatmospheric sciencesclimatologyclimatic changes
- social scienceseconomics and businessbusiness and management
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-RIA - HORIZON Research and Innovation ActionsCoordinator
8000 Aarhus C
Denmark