On 15 December 2022, RECONECT participated in the final conference of its sister project OPERANDUM on its Nature-based Solutions (NbS) lessons to manage climate related water risks. The conference focused on gathering key learning and overcoming challenges in the implementation of NbS in Europe and beyond. In 2022, extreme heatwaves…

Nature often suffers damage caused by extreme weather such as storms, heavy rainfall, floods and droughts. But nature itself can also be part of the solution by reducing the impact of extreme weather and climate change. …

The RECONECT B&H Collaborator is affected by riverine and flash floods and landslides. Frequent floods, great damage, high recovery costs in the past indicate the need to improve the flood protection system and create conditions for better flood risk management. This is where we need RECONECT. — Authors: Tamara Sudar, MSc Civil Engineer, member of the University of Belgrade (UNBELGR) team; Prof. Jasna Plavšić, PhD Civil Engineer, member of the University of Belgrade (UNBELGR) team.

Monitoring and assessing the performance and the impact by a Nature-based Solution is an important task to be planned when designing a NbS. On-line sensors and ICT solutions plays hence a big role also in projects dealing with nature and regeneration of ecosystems. In the following it is described how RECONECT ICT team is working to develop and deploy appropriate tools to perform monitoring and evaluation of interventions.

The Thur is Eastern Switzerland’s predominant river, flowing from the limestone Alps into the Rhine river on the border with Germany. The name Thur comes from the Indo-European word dhu, meaning “the hurrying one”. And hurrying it does, sometimes spilling over its own banks and flooding adjacent land. Without any natural or artificial retention areas, the river caused at times great havoc. Today the basin benefits from nature-based solutions to absorb the excess water whilst the river flows, and hurries, the natural way again.

RECONECT, a 6-year EU project implementing Nature-based Solutions to reduce water-related climate risks, held its 7th General Assembly in Zurich from 23 to 25 May 2022. — The 7th RECONECT GA was the first meeting held in person following the COVID-19 easing of restrictions. The previous four GA’s had been held virtually. …

Story by Carlos A Madera P, M.Sc, Ph.D, Universidad del Valle, Cali-Colombia; Daniel Ascuntar R, M.Sc, DAGMA, Cali-Colombia. — The Cañaveralejo, Meléndez and Lili river basin. Cali is Colombia’s second-largest city and third most populous after Bogota and Medellin. As the only major Colombian city with access to the Pacific Coast, Cali is the main urban center in the south and has one of Colombia’s fastest-growing economies.

Nature-based Solutions and the new generation of engineers — Vishal Balaji Devanand, a student who recently graduated from IHE Delft, joins us to discuss his experience of working with the RECONECT project, his keen interest in Nature-based Solutions (NbS) and how he believes we can take NbS to scale, contributing to building resilience to climate change. Vishal Balaji Devanand…

Partners from Operandum, Phusicos, and Reconect, three EU 2020 Horizon projects, gathered on Friday, August 27th to deliver a session at the first fully virtual Stockholm World Water Week. — The event entitled “Reconnecting water management with nature: Upscaling nature-based solutions” highlighted methods to scaling Nature-based Solutions (NbS), focusing on the potential barriers to uptake as well as the possible enablers and solutions to apply NbS to reduce hydro-meteorological risk and mitigate climate change.