Protecting and restoring raw water sources through actions at the landscape scale (PROWATER)

Climate projections for the 2 Seas area point towards dryer and warmer summers with more extreme and concentrated precipitation events (summer storms). This could result in a higher demand for water production. Increased water abstractions volumes during summer will have high impacts at an already critical moment for water dependent ecosystems. This will aggravate the conflict between water provisioning and biodiversity conservation. Restoring and developing blue-green structures in landscapes improves the hydrological resilience to droughts and floods, provides substantial climate mitigation benefits and benefits biodiversity.

The overall objective of the PROWATER project is to build resilience against droughts (and extreme precipitation events) through ecosystem-based adaptation measures. The key objective is to develop and implement a PES-model (Payment for Ecosystem Services) that facilitates the actual implementation of ecosystem-based adaptation measures. Independent organisations that work on landscape rehabilitation can thus play a role as ‘ethical brokers’ in providing services (by selecting/funding/implementing measures) to society. By identifying, quantifying and demonstrating the additional benefits (ecosystem services) of the ecosystem-based adaptation measures, it becomes possible to recognize the full spectrum of the benefits that are associated with ecosystem-based adaptation measures and provide additional leverage for implementation.

See project results for the PROWATER project.