The issue draws partly on discussions at the 5th European Conference on Biodiversity and Climate Change, held in Bonn in September 2023, and on subsequent work associated with the BioClim-Wetlands project. It concentrates on coastal and riverine wetlands rather than peatlands, which usually receive more scientific and policy attention. Its scope spans the natural and social sciences and also incorporates practical experience from wetland managers and policymakers.

The editorial introduction identifies a continuing loss of wetlands across Europe alongside pressures from climate change, pollution and habitat loss. It describes wetlands as multifunctional ecosystems that can reduce flood risk, buffer droughts, protect coasts and strengthen water resilience, while many also store significant amounts of carbon. Other reported services include improved water quality, groundwater recharge, food, recreational opportunities and habitat for numerous species. These services are presented as reasons to protect and restore wetlands, although the introduction does not provide a new continent-wide estimate of their economic value or quantify their decline.

The first thematic section examines the vulnerability of coastal and riverine wetlands to a changing climate. A state-of-the-art overview by Kaden and colleagues describes their biodiversity value and pressures under climate change, with an emphasis on treating wetlands as multifunctional landscapes. A separate study by Fink and colleagues uses ecological modelling to consider climate-smart conservation planning for riparian systems and floodplain species. Ibáñez and colleagues assess coastal vulnerability to sea-level rise and coastal squeeze, highlighting sediment dynamics and ecological connectivity as important considerations for long-term resilience. Together, these papers frame regionally varied but connected challenges; they do not constitute a single pan-European assessment with one common effect estimate.

The second section addresses ecosystem services and wetland nature-based solutions for climate mitigation and adaptation. Stammel and colleagues review practical, non-monetary tools for assessing ecosystem services in river floodplains, while Cvijanović and colleagues emphasize robust biodiversity monitoring as a prerequisite for reliable service assessment and management. Zak and colleagues demonstrate that wetland restoration can enhance nutrient retention, a regulating service the introduction describes as often undervalued. Ludewig and colleagues quantify the potential contribution of wetlands to climate mitigation through carbon sequestration. Wantzen and Cao examine links between cultural practices and biodiversity in European riverine landscapes, supporting the inclusion of biocultural values and traditional knowledge in conservation and management.

Practical restoration is the focus of the third section. Kmetova-Biro and colleagues describe how cooperation along the Danube has strengthened transnational governance, allowed protected areas to be linked and improved ecological connectivity. De la Vega-Leinert and colleagues examine managed realignment as a multifaceted nature-based solution for coastal areas, including alternatives to hard coastal defence. Birk and colleagues base their analysis on 18 demonstration cases from the MERLIN project and identify five interdependent building blocks for scaling up freshwater ecosystem restoration: evidence-based planning, resource mobilization, stakeholder collaboration and other elements presented in the paper as mutually reinforcing. Macháč and colleagues address limited awareness of wetlands’ socioeconomic value and show the net benefits to society in the cases they assess.

The fourth section reviews European policy and implementation. Klusmann and colleagues map the EU legal framework relevant to wetlands, identifying provisions that support or undermine conservation and restoration and positioning the EU Nature Restoration Regulation as a central instrument for action across Member States. Rouillard and colleagues analyse national Common Agricultural Policy Strategic Plans to assess the allocation of available funds to measures such as reducing drainage, reconnecting wetlands and improving water retention, finding both promising approaches and missed opportunities. Stoffers and colleagues consider free-flowing rivers, restoration objectives and practical approaches in relation to the EU target of restoring at least 25,000 km of rivers by 2030.

The policy papers support a qualified assessment: an enabling legal framework exists at EU level, but implementation barriers, inconsistencies and environmentally harmful incentives remain. The introduction notes that Member States’ implementation choices will shape the transition toward more resilient wetland management. It also states that national measures operate within wider European objectives, including the new restoration regulation and the target for free-flowing rivers, rather than replacing them.

In the concluding chapter, Kaden and colleagues integrate the issue’s findings with recommendations from the European Network of Heads of Nature Conservation Agencies. These recommendations outline steps for accelerating wetland restoration and coordinating action among science, practice and policy. The special issue therefore serves as a research guide and collection of case studies rather than a test of a single intervention. Its principal limitation is the diversity of evidence assembled across 15 papers, which prevents the introduction from reporting one pooled effect, a common set of methods or a definitive measure of restoration success across Europe.

Subject of Research: Conservation and restoration of European coastal and riverine wetlands under climate change

Article Title: Wetlands in a changing climate: restoring coasts and floodplains

Article References: Kaden, U. S., Schmid, S., Wulf, S., Marsden, K., Klusmann, C., Bonn, A., Tockner, K., & Scholz, M. (2026). Wetlands in a changing climate: restoring coasts and floodplains. Nature Conservation, 62, 5-11. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.62.184556

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/natureconservation.62.184556

Keywords: wetland restoration, riverine wetlands, coastal wetlands, climate adaptation, biodiversity, nature-based solutions, ecosystem services, European Union policy, free-flowing rivers, special issue, Wetlands, changing

The review focused on agricultural practices that can improve the hydrology and physical structure of freshwater habitats. These included restrictions on ploughing, grazing or mowing along watercourses, temporary storage of floodwater on agricultural fields, drainage bans and restrictions, hedgerows and field margins, ponds and small wetlands, wetland and peatland management, agroforestry, and soil and grassland practices intended to increase water retention. Agricultural pollution was outside the review’s direct scope, although the authors noted that restoring natural hydrological and morphological processes may also reduce pollution.

CAP funding for 2023–2027 comprises EUR 307 billion in planned public expenditure from EU and national sources, with spending scheduled through 2029. The “Green Architecture” combines conditionality, eco-schemes, Environment and Climate interventions (ENVCLIM), and investment support, alongside smaller categories such as support for Areas of Specific Disadvantage, cooperation, knowledge exchange and innovation. Regulations require at least 25% of European Agricultural Guarantee Fund direct payments to be allocated to eco-schemes and at least 35% of European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development funding to support climate, environment and animal-welfare interventions.

Approximately 29% of the annual CAP budget, equivalent to EUR 89 billion, is allocated to interventions contributing to the sustainable management of natural resources, including water, soil and air. Of that total, EUR 2 billion is exclusively dedicated to measures targeting that objective, excluding direct payments without an explicit environmental purpose. The review found that 35% of the eco-scheme budget and 66% of the ENVCLIM budget were linked to area-based payments contributing to improved water quality beyond conditionality. Funding linked to sustainable water use and water-balance measures was lower, at 14% of the eco-scheme budget and 8% of the ENVCLIM budget.

Conditionality provides the broadest baseline reach, applying to 89% of the EU’s utilised agricultural area. GAEC 2 requires Member States to ensure appropriate protection of wetlands and peatlands by 2025, while GAEC 4 establishes minimum 3-metre buffer strips along watercourses with restrictions on fertiliser and pesticide use. GAEC 8 requires retention of landscape features that can reduce runoff and increase infiltration when positioned on slopes or in riparian areas. Small ponds, streams and small wetlands are eligible under this standard but were rarely selected by Member States.

The review identified important limitations in the baseline rules. Implementation of GAEC 2 was delayed, some definitions were ambiguous, and exemptions were widely used. In the approved CSPs, every Member State exempted farms below 10 hectares from GAEC 7, representing 76% of EU farms and about 26% of arable land. Simplification packages adopted in April 2024 and May 2025 also allowed Member States to remove GAEC 2 from conditionality, align watercourse definitions with national legislation, remove the minimum landscape-feature requirement under GAEC 8, extend permanent-grassland status from five to seven years, and increase the allowable reduction in permanent grassland from 5% to 10% before triggering reconversion requirements.

National plans nevertheless contained examples of interventions with potential restoration value. Poland’s “Water retention on permanent grassland” eco-scheme has EUR 97.3 million in planned public expenditure, targets up to 315,000 hectares annually and pays EUR 62 per hectare. Ireland’s ACRES Cooperation intervention combines fixed and result-based payments, assesses drainage conditions, and gives substantial emphasis to commonages and peatlands; it has EUR 460 million in planned public expenditure for 2023–2029, targets 2 million hectares and represents 26.17% of Ireland’s ENVCLIM budget. Finland’s “management of run-off waters” intervention regulates drainage to reduce runoff and nutrient leaching, maintain groundwater levels outside active cultivation periods and recycle drainage water through storage and later irrigation.

Investment support is mixed. Twenty-four Member States planned at least one non-productive on-farm investment, while 22 planned off-farm non-productive investments. Green investments account for 62% of investment interventions and EUR 28 billion in public expenditure, while non-productive on- and off-farm investments specifically linked to environmental and climate goals account for EUR 17 billion, approximately 30% of the investment allocation. However, many water-related investments focus on technical efficiency, including irrigation, fertiliser and pesticide use, rather than habitat restoration. Support for creating or restoring drainage schemes appears in at least 11 CSPs, a practice the authors identify as potentially undermining freshwater restoration.

The authors’ overall assessment is that CAP 2023–2027 has substantial potential to support freshwater restoration, but that national flexibility has often favoured political feasibility and farmer participation over environmental ambition. The review identifies inconsistent conditionality, limited targeting of eco-schemes and ENVCLIM measures, investment focused more on “grey” infrastructure than ecosystem restoration, and a CAP budget still dominated by income support. It recommends more consistent enforcement of baseline standards, better-targeted interventions, robust monitoring, a larger role for non-productive investments and cooperation, and payments more directly tied to measurable environmental outcomes. The review did not assess whether particular restoration measures produced ecological improvements, so the findings concern the design and planned allocation of CAP interventions rather than demonstrated restoration outcomes.

Subject of Research: Evaluation of EU Common Agricultural Policy plans for freshwater ecosystem restoration

Article Title: Does the Common Agricultural Policy 2023–2027 support the restoration of freshwater ecosystems?

Article References: Rouillard, J., Meier, J., Blackstock, K. L., Matthews, K. B., & Birk, S. (2026). Does the Common Agricultural Policy 2023–2027 support the restoration of freshwater ecosystems?. Nature Conservation, 62, 337-354. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.62.148845

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/natureconservation.62.148845

Keywords: Common Agricultural Policy, freshwater restoration, EU agriculture, wetlands, peatlands, rivers and lakes, agricultural policy, environmental payments, CAP Strategic Plans, Does, Common, Agricultural

The species has a broad North American distribution extending from Alaska across most of Canada and southward through Pennsylvania, northern Illinois, Nebraska and parts of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and Washington. In the southern portion of this range, it is generally associated with cool, moist habitats such as bogs, wet meadows and other wetlands. Before 2007, Nebraska’s known records consisted of eight pre-1900 specimens held by the Academy of Natural Sciences at Drexel University: five from West Point in Cuming County, two from Sioux County and one from Broken Bow in Custer County.

Eight specimens were collected along Whitehorse Creek, about 10 km north of North Platte, in 2007. The creek is cold and spring-fed and likely creates a cool microclimate along its banks. Following that rediscovery, additional searches were conducted to locate other Nebraska populations. The study examined sites considered potentially suitable for the grasshopper, with some individuals collected incidentally during surveys for butterflies in public areas such as state parks, wildlife areas, recreation areas and historical parks. Other searches used satellite and topographic maps to identify promising public sites or roadsides. In 2023, the researchers contacted private landowners to request access to potentially suitable areas, although the reported occurrence results were not separated by land ownership.

The targeted 2023 survey examined 30 sites between June 19 and June 29, a period considered likely to coincide with peak adult abundance in Nebraska. Specimens were collected with aerial nets and sometimes photographed; collected material was deposited in the Chadron State College invertebrate collection. Across the full survey period, M. borealis was collected at nine general sites and found at three specific localities within Gilbert-Baker Wildlife Management Area and two localities at Whitehorse Creek. A single male was also seen at Schlagel Creek Wildlife Management Area but evaded capture.

Adults and nymphs were photographed during the surveys. Immature grasshoppers at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument were photographed but not collected. The targeted 2023 survey detected the species at four of the 30 sites surveyed in late June. The records included single adult specimens at several locations, while populations were described as numerous at Cottonwood-Steverson, Bowring Ranch and Whitehorse Creek. At two Whitehorse Creek localities, collectors reported 16 adult specimens at one site and six at another, with more than 100 grasshoppers likely seen at the first locality.

Most Nebraska collections came from fen wetlands or margins of small spring-fed streams and ditches. The main exception was Gilbert-Baker Wildlife Management Area, where three specimens occurred among openings in a canyon dominated by ponderosa pine. These individuals were among common snowberry or creeping Oregon grape and were 60–200 metres from a small spring-fed stream. At Cottonwood-Steverson, the grasshoppers were abundant among patches of pale smartweed, especially within 50 metres of a ditch west of Steverson Lake, although some occurred among giant goldenrod farther away.

At Bowring Ranch State Historic Park, the species was found almost exclusively among pale smartweed along a ditch about 300 metres east of the visitor centre. Similar spatial associations were recorded at other sites: two of three adults and one immature specimen at Fort Robinson State Park were among pale smartweed; a collected adult and observed nymphs at Smith Lake occurred among that plant; and pale smartweed was numerous at Gudmundsen Ranch. At Whitehorse Creek, the grasshopper was abundant among giant goldenrod, while nymphs at Agate Fossil Beds were also found among that vegetation. Investigators did not observe feeding, so these plant associations do not demonstrate which plants the grasshoppers consumed.

The authors interpret Nebraska’s populations, and possibly those in the Black Hills of South Dakota, as glacial relicts that may have been isolated from other populations for a substantial period. More than half of the recorded Nebraska locations for M. borealis fall within the general ranges of three fish considered glacial relicts: northern redbelly dace, finescale dace and northern pearl dace. The known grasshopper distribution also includes Nebraska’s two westernmost records of the broad-winged skipper, at Smith Lake and Whitehorse Creek. Earlier work has described the Niobrara River Valley as a postglacial refugium for plant and animal species, and several grasshopper collection sites were near that valley. Plant species considered glacial relicts have also been recorded in wetland fens in the Nebraska Sandhills, where some grasshopper locations overlap.

This observational study establishes occurrence and distribution through field collections, photographs and one uncaptured sighting, but it did not directly determine the age, origin or degree of isolation of the Nebraska populations. It also did not measure population trends, determine demographic connectivity or test the relict interpretation through genetic analysis. Nebraska specimens appeared morphologically indistinguishable from those in South Dakota’s Black Hills, while both populations appeared to differ morphologically from populations in Colorado and Canada. The study’s conclusion that Nebraska populations are glacial relicts therefore remains an interpretation based on distribution, habitat and morphological comparisons rather than a direct measurement of their evolutionary history.

Subject of Research: Field documentation and distribution of the Melanoplus borealis grasshopper in Nebraska

Article Title: Occurrence and distribution of Melanoplus borealis (Fieber) as a glacial relict in Nebraska

Article References: Brust, M. L., & Hill, J. (2026). Occurrence and distribution of Melanoplus borealis (Fieber) as a glacial relict in Nebraska. Journal of Orthoptera Research, 35(1), 83-86. https://doi.org/10.3897/jor.35.137718

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/jor.35.137718

Keywords: Melanoplus borealis, Nebraska, grasshoppers, field surveys, wetlands, glacial relicts, insect distribution, Chadron State College, Occurrence, distribution, Melanoplus, borealis

The historical extent of European wetlands has been drastically reduced over the past two and a half centuries. Estimates suggest that between 45% and 80% of these habitats have been drained, altered, or reclaimed for agriculture, urban development, and flood control. In large river floodplains, the construction of dikes and the straightening of rivers, such as the Rhine in the 19th century, have disconnected water bodies from their natural flood pulses. Today, 70% to 90% of European floodplains are disconnected from characteristic flooding dynamics. Furthermore, the fluvial network is fragmented by more than 1.2 million instream barriers across 36 countries, with less than 23% of large European rivers remaining free-flowing. This physical alteration has profound implications for the hydrological integrity of these systems.

Climate change is exacerbating these existing pressures, creating a complex web of challenges that vary significantly across European biogeographic regions. Rising average temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, and the increasing frequency of extreme weather events are altering the hydrological cycles that wetlands depend on. In snow-affected catchments in Central and Eastern Europe, high flows are expected to appear earlier in the year, reducing the duration and volume of inundation. This shift threatens to diminish habitat for fish, vertebrates, and floodplain-specific vegetation. Conversely, in Southern Europe, intensifying droughts and water shortages pose a severe threat, with summer drought frequency in the Mediterranean potentially rising by up to 40% by 2100 under high-emission scenarios. These regional disparities demand tailored adaptation strategies that account for local hydrological and climatic conditions.

The biodiversity loss in these wetlands is stark and multifaceted. Approximately 45% of waterbird populations along the Africa–Eurasia flyway show declining trends, while migratory European freshwater fish populations have dropped by 75% in recent decades due to habitat loss and fragmentation. Amphibians, which are highly dependent on shallow aquatic habitats, face some of the most profound declines, with nearly one-third of species considered threatened. Invertebrates such as dragonflies and damselflies are also at risk, with 21% of assessed species threatened by water abstraction, pollution, and channelisation. These declines are not isolated incidents but are part of a broader trend where wetland species populations have decreased by 81% globally since 1970, underscoring the critical role these ecosystems play in sustaining global biodiversity.

Coastal wetlands face unique threats from sea-level rise, which is projected to be the primary driver of change along the Atlantic coast. Under high-emission scenarios, between 20% and 90% of today’s coastal wetland areas could be lost by 2100, depending on the magnitude of sea-level rise and the region’s capacity for inland migration. Human-made structures such as dikes and seawalls often prevent the natural inland migration of wetlands, a phenomenon known as coastal squeeze. In Denmark, for instance, predictions suggest that almost half of all coastal wetlands will be permanently inundated by 2120 under a medium sea-level rise scenario. In the Mediterranean, studies indicate that one-third to more than half of analysed coastal wetlands could be submerged by 2100, further exacerbating the loss of habitat and ecosystem services.

Despite these challenges, wetlands offer significant opportunities for climate mitigation and adaptation. As natural sponges, they regulate the water cycle by storing excess water during floods and releasing it during droughts, thereby enhancing resilience to hydrological extremes. Restored wetlands can also act as long-term carbon sinks, sequestering atmospheric carbon through photosynthesis and storing it in soils. European wetlands are estimated to hold vast carbon stocks, equivalent to 3–8 years of regional greenhouse gas emissions. However, human degradation, such as drainage and land conversion, can reverse this function, turning wetlands from carbon sinks into sources of carbon dioxide and other potent greenhouse gases like methane and nitrous oxide. Therefore, maintaining the ecological integrity of these systems is crucial for their continued role in climate regulation.

Policy frameworks are increasingly recognizing the importance of wetlands in addressing these dual crises. The EU’s Nature Restoration Regulation, which entered into force in 2024, sets binding targets for restoring degraded ecosystems, including wetlands, by 2030. This regulation aims to restore at least 20% of the EU’s land and sea areas, with the ambition to extend these efforts to all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050. Additionally, the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 calls for restoring at least 25,000 km of rivers to a free-flowing state and reducing pesticide use by 50%. These policies emphasize the need for integrated, cross-sectoral approaches that coordinate environmental, agricultural, and climate strategies to effectively protect and restore wetland habitats.

Effective implementation of these policies requires a shift in how wetlands are perceived and managed. They must be viewed not only as vulnerable systems but as pivotal Nature-based Solutions for achieving climate resilience and halting biodiversity loss. This involves rethinking wetlands as complex socio-ecological systems that provide multiple benefits, including water purification, flood mitigation, and cultural value. Restoration efforts should focus on improving ecological connectivity, reducing anthropogenic pressures, and enhancing the multifunctionality of these landscapes. By integrating strict protection of remaining intact wetlands with adaptive management practices that incorporate sustainable human uses, Europe can unlock the full potential of its riverine and coastal wetlands to support both human well-being and ecological health.

Subject of Research: Conservation status and climate vulnerability of European riverine and coastal wetlands

Article Title: European riverine and coastal wetlands under pressure: biodiversity and climate change

Article References: Kaden, U. S., Schmid, S., Vieweg, M., Scholz, M., & Dufour, S. (2026). European riverine and coastal wetlands under pressure: biodiversity and climate change. Nature Conservation, 62, 13-45. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.62.163636

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/natureconservation.62.163636

Keywords: wetlands, biodiversity, climate change, ecosystem services, Nature-based Solutions, EU policy, habitat restoration, hydrology, carbon sequestration, coastal squeeze, European, riverine

The family Characeae, commonly known as stoneworts, consists of green algae characterized by macroscopic thalli composed of a series of nodes and internodes. These structures are not merely botanical curiosities but play critical ecological roles in their respective environments. Stoneworts contribute to high water transparency, sequester significant amounts of carbon and nutrients, and serve as a foundational element of the aquatic food web. Furthermore, they provide essential habitat and refuge for various aquatic animals. Due to their sensitivity to environmental changes, including salinity, temperature, and water chemistry, Characeae species are widely recognized as effective bioindicators. Their presence or absence can offer valuable insights into the overall health and stability of freshwater and brackish ecosystems.

Despite their ecological importance, many Characeae species are currently facing severe threats to their survival. The combination of continuous human transformation of habitats and ongoing climate change has placed these algae at risk, particularly in arid and semiarid regions. Consequently, numerous species are protected under European directives, such as the Habitats Directive 92/43/EC and the Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC. In several European countries, national legislation further safeguards these organisms, and they are included in national Red Lists to monitor their conservation status. However, Italy lacks a national Red List for Characeae, representing a significant gap in the country’s conservation framework. This absence hinders the implementation of targeted protection measures and the accurate assessment of population trends across the Italian peninsula and its islands.

The study conducted in spring and summer 2022 focused on sampling sites selected for their visual coverage of Characeae exceeding five percent. The locations included the Laghetto Monte Soro in Cesarò, the Lago Ancipa-Sartori in Troina, the Geloi Wetland in Gela, and the Curcuraggi area in Melilli. These sites varied significantly in altitude and water type, ranging from high-altitude natural lakes within the Nebrodi Regional Natural Park to low-lying brackish marshes fed by saline springs. The Geloi Wetland, for instance, is situated at approximately 30 meters above sea level and features artificial marshes with brackish water resulting from an underground saline spring. In contrast, the Monte Soro lake is located at about 1,575 meters above sea level, an environment where water often freezes during the winter months.

Among the species identified, Chara globularis was found in the Curcuraggi area, a site characterized by temporary pools used by grazing cattle. This species is cosmopolitan in distribution and has been reported from various regions in Italy, including Trentino Alto Adige, Piedmont, and Lombardy. Its presence in an area impacted by human activity is consistent with previous studies indicating that C. globularis is tolerant of eutrophication and anthropogenic disturbances. The morphology of the specimens collected showed thalli between 24 and 30 centimeters tall, with slender rays and rudimentary spine cells. The species is monoecious, bearing both oogonia and antheridia on the same thalli, which facilitates sexual reproduction in stable environments.

Chara vulgaris, another cosmopolitan species, was recorded in the Geloi Wetland and the Lago Ancipa-Sartori. This is the most widespread and frequently reported species of the genus Chara in Italy. The specimens observed had thalli ranging from 10 to 30 centimeters in height, with a main axis diameter of approximately 600 micrometers. The rays were slightly curved upwards, and the cortex was diplostichous and aulacanthous. The presence of C. vulgaris in these previously uninspected sites adds valuable data to its distribution map in Sicily. Conservation status assessments for this species vary across Europe, with classifications ranging from endangered in Norway to least concern in Wales, highlighting the need for localized monitoring and protection strategies.

Nitella capillaris, a less widespread species primarily found in Europe and Africa, was discovered in the Monte Soro Lake in Cesarò. This finding is significant because the species had not been previously reported in the province of Messina. The lake’s high altitude and cold climate pose unique challenges for algal survival. However, N. capillaris is known for its ability to withstand frost, producing oospores that are resistant to freezing stress and can germinate when conditions improve. The specimens collected were dioecious, with oogonia borne in the bifurcations of the rays. In several European countries, including Sweden and Great Britain, this species is considered extinct, while in others, it is classified as vulnerable or endangered, underscoring the importance of preserving its remaining habitats.

Tolypella glomerata was identified in the Geloi Wetland, specifically in the brackish marshes of Gela. This species is often found in slightly brackish waters and has a likely cosmopolitan distribution. The study noted that population density and fertility decreased as salinity increased, moving from the Acquitrino del Giunco Foglioso to the Pantano Pavoncelle. This observation aligns with previous research indicating that while T. glomerata adapts well to brackish environments, salinity remains a limiting factor for its reproductive success. The species has been reported in various parts of Italy, including Veneto, Emilia Romagna, and Tuscany, but its presence in the specific wetlands of eastern Sicily had not been documented until now. The findings suggest that brackish wetlands in Sicily may harbor unique algal communities that warrant further investigation.

The results of this study highlight the critical need for more comprehensive surveys of Characeae in Sicily. The distribution of these algae is not yet sufficiently known, and many areas remain unexamined. Filling these knowledge gaps is essential for developing effective conservation strategies and creating a national Red List for Characeae in Italy. Such a list would provide a standardized framework for assessing the conservation status of these species and guiding protection efforts. The study also emphasizes the ecological value of stoneworts in maintaining water quality and supporting aquatic biodiversity. By documenting new records and providing detailed morphological descriptions, the research contributes to the broader scientific understanding of freshwater algal ecology in the Mediterranean region.

Future research should focus on expanding surveys to other unexplored areas of Sicily and Italy, particularly in regions where data on Characeae distribution is scarce. Long-term monitoring of these populations will be crucial for detecting trends in abundance and health, especially in the context of climate change and human-induced environmental pressures. Collaboration between researchers, conservation organizations, and local authorities will be necessary to implement protective measures and ensure the survival of these ecologically important algae. The findings from eastern Sicily serve as a reminder of the hidden biodiversity that exists in seemingly ordinary wetlands and the urgent need to document and protect it before it is lost.

Subject of Research: Distribution and morphology of Characeae algae in eastern Sicily

Article Title: New Characeae ( Charophyceae , Charales ) report in eastern Sicily (Italy)

Article References: Pagana, I., Virzì, A., Zafarana, M. A., & Alongi, G. (2024). New Characeae (Charophyceae, Charales) report in eastern Sicily (Italy). Italian Botanist, 18, 109-122. https://doi.org/10.3897/italianbotanist.18.131661

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/italianbotanist.18.131661

Keywords: Characeae, Stoneworts, Sicily, Freshwater Algae, Biodiversity, Conservation, Wetlands, Bioindicators, Italy, Ecology, Charophyceae, Charales

Wetlands have always been integral to human civilization, from the fertile Mesopotamian marshes that earned the region its reputation as the cradle of civilization to the diminished remnants still worked by Marsh People today. Their value lies in a natural hydrology that periodically or seasonally floods, drawing nutrient-laden water from upstream sources into inundated zones where a complex interplay of hydrological, physical, chemical, and biological processes strips away excess nitrogen and phosphorus. Floodplains and coastal wetlands are particularly effective at this mitigation, retaining more than 10 kilograms of phosphorus per hectare per year in some cases, one to two orders of magnitude higher than in other wetland types such as minerotrophic peatlands. The pathways of water flow, whether surface runoff, groundwater, flooding, or tidal exchange, ultimately determine which nutrient cycling processes dominate and how much removal occurs.

Sedimentation is the first and most visible of these processes. When a stream overflows its banks, flow velocity decreases abruptly, allowing suspended material to deposit across the floodplain. Similarly, in coastal wetlands, suspended sediment settles when tidal cycles stagnate and flow velocities approach zero. The intensity and frequency of flooding shape the amount, type, and location of sediment in these areas, while water chemistry promotes flocculation, causing particles to aggregate and settle. Vegetation plays a critical role too, as wetland plants reduce water flow, promote particle deposition, and prevent resuspension and bank erosion, particularly when trees grow along stream channels. Coarse particles like sand settle quickly in low-flow areas, while finer clay, silt, and organic matter remain suspended longer. Microbes may even enhance sediment retention by binding particles, though bioturbation by worms and crustaceans can mix soil layers and reduce it.

Beneath the sediment surface, microbial transformations drive the most consequential nutrient removal. Denitrification, where nitrate is reduced to nitrogen gases and permanently removed from the aquatic system, is the key water purification process in wetlands, occurring mainly under anaerobic conditions in waterlogged soils. During flooding events, when nitrate-enriched water influxes into riparian zones, nitrogen removal efficiency can often exceed 90 percent. Yet the process is delicately balanced. At elevated nutrient loads, bacterial denitrification may be limited by carbon availability, which serves as the energy source and electron donor needed to reduce nitrate. Temperature matters as well, though significant nitrate removal can occur even below 5 degrees Celsius during winter. Effectiveness declines under fluctuating water tables, low pH, or high nitrate concentrations, leading to incomplete denitrification and the release of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas. Alongside microbial denitrification, an abiotic process involving nitrate reduction through pyrite oxidation has been observed in carbon-poor groundwater systems.

Phosphorus follows a different trajectory. Rather than being converted to a gas, it is retained through sorption to iron, aluminum, and calcium minerals, as well as by precipitation as insoluble compounds. In calcium-rich wetlands, phosphorus can precipitate with calcium to form calcium phosphate minerals under alkaline conditions. Phosphorus binding is favored at pH ranges of 4 to 6, thanks to the negative charge of phosphate species and the isoelectric point of metal oxides in the circum-neutral range. However, in coastal wetlands, high concentrations of sulfate can outcompete phosphorus for positively charged binding sites, and when sulfate is reduced to sulfide in anaerobic sediments, it promotes sulfate-mediated phosphorus mobilization or internal eutrophication, significantly altering the phosphorus cycle. Plant uptake provides yet another retention pathway, with mangroves and salt marshes particularly effective at assimilating nutrients into biomass.

The effectiveness of all these processes is now under threat from human activities and climate change. Hydrological connectivity is the key factor controlling the sink function of wetlands, facilitating nutrient exchange between aquatic and terrestrial environments. Fragmentation leads to smaller, isolated, and hydrologically disconnected wetlands, impairing this exchange and reducing nutrient removal efficiency. Excessive nutrient loading from agricultural runoff, wastewater discharge, and urban development leads to eutrophication, hypoxia, and harmful algal blooms, as frequently documented for the Baltic Sea over the last century. Climate change introduces further complexity, with rising temperatures, altered precipitation patterns, and more frequent droughts affecting soil chemistry and microbial processes like denitrification. Sea-level rise particularly threatens coastal wetlands by increasing erosion, altering salinity, and disrupting nutrient cycling, and even low levels of increased salinity can profoundly reshape microbial community composition and promote internal phosphorus mobilization in surface sediment.

Restoration, the review emphasizes, does not necessarily lead to all-natural processes, even if natural conditions are created. The physical structure for a particular ecosystem and its biotic composition may self-assemble, but the re-establishment of the microbiome can take several years. Successful projects must restore hydrological connectivity, enhance sediment and nutrient dynamics, and re-establish critical ecosystem processes such as denitrification and phosphorus sorption. For floodplains, this typically involves filling ditches and drains, reconnecting groundwater flow to the riparian aquifer, re-meandering channels, removing or breaching embankments, and reinstating natural surface flow dynamics. In coastal wetlands, restoring tidal flows enhances water exchange with the adjacent marine environment, supporting nutrient cycling and improving the removal or storage of excess nitrogen and phosphorus.

The evidence from long-term case studies is compelling. In 2003, a 6.5-kilometer stretch of River Odense in southern Denmark was re-meandered, allowing natural inundation of the floodplain every winter. Over the following two decades, sedimentation rates varied considerably between years, from zero to 11 kilograms of dry weight per square meter annually, while tracer measurements using cesium-137 indicated a longer-term average of 6 kilograms per square meter per year. Flooding enhanced nitrate removal in groundwater by 20 to 42 kilograms of nitrogen per hectare per year, creating a stagnant zone beneath the floodplain that increased residence time and upward flow into the highly reactive organic-rich topsoil. Seed richness and diversity from winter-deposited sediment peaked at 16 meters from the river channel, coinciding with a confluence zone emerging within the floodplain. Yet incubation experiments revealed that between 11 and 25 percent of the phosphorus deposited on the floodplain could be released as dissolved inorganic phosphorus following deposition, a reminder that restoration gains are never entirely one-directional.

On Rügen Island in Germany, a coastal fen peatland known as Polder Drammendorf was rewetted during winter 2019 through dike removal and is now permanently flooded by Baltic Sea water. Analysis of elevation-dependent soil characteristics revealed significant spatial variability in soil organic matter content and ammonium release behavior. A strong negative correlation between soil organic matter and elevation indicated restricted organic matter mineralization in low-lying areas. Soils at low elevations released significantly higher ammonium concentrations during initial leaching, with peak levels exceeding typical Baltic Sea waters by approximately two orders of magnitude. These findings identify low-lying areas as critical nutrient hotspots during initial rewetting stages, potentially creating significant eutrophication pressure on connected marine ecosystems. Along the Austrian Danube, modeling of the Donau-Auen National Park showed that fully reconnecting seven side-channels would increase current nitrogen and phosphorus retention by 2 to 5 times, compensating for lower retention capacities in dry years, though reconnected side-channels account for a nutrient reduction of only about 0.1 percent of the annual load of the Austrian Danube.

The review concludes that floodplain and coastal wetlands are irreplaceable ecosystems whose restoration requires a multifaceted approach combining habitat conservation, pollution reduction, climate change adaptation, and active restoration efforts while addressing societal needs. The EU Restoration Law, aiming to restore 30 percent of all habitats listed in the FFH directive annex 1 by 2030, offers an important vehicle for planning and implementing large-scale wetland restoration, though conflicts of objectives, debates on financing, land availability, and ecological potential continue to slow progress. The authors propose five research avenues, including examining wetland resilience to environmental changes, developing cost-effective and scalable monitoring techniques combining field surveys, in-situ nutrient measurements, and remote sensing, creating simulation models to predict hydrological impacts, investigating microbial ecology and nutrient cycling through genomic and metagenomic analyses, and promoting cross-disciplinary collaboration across hydrology, ecology, and socio-economics. Recovery of nutrient retention processes, they find, can be either rapid or delayed, and nutrient legacies and soil degradation remain the fundamental constraints. Ultimately, the effectiveness of restoration depends on site-specific factors such as wetland degradation, size, hydrological connectivity, plant recovery, and ongoing global changes, underscoring the importance of considering both spatial and temporal dimensions in every custom-tailored restoration strategy.

Subject of Research: Floodplains and coastal wetlands as nutrient sinks: a restoration perspective

Article Title: Floodplains and coastal wetlands as nutrient sinks: a restoration perspective

Article References: Zak, D., Tschikof, M., Natho, S., Jes Petersen, R., Kronvang, B., Hoffmann, C. C., Liu, H., Wang, M., & Kaden, U. S. (2026). Floodplains and coastal wetlands as nutrient sinks: a restoration perspective. Nature Conservation, 62, 175-193. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.62.158302

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/natureconservation.62.158302

Keywords: Floodplains, coastal, wetlands, nutrient, sinks, restoration, perspective, scientific research

The flood pulse concept, first articulated by Junk and colleagues in 1989, explains why floodplains teem with life. Rhythmic wet-dry cycles restructure physical habitat, reset ecological successions, and open what researchers call windows of opportunity, periods of abundant resources, alternating with windows of susceptibility, when survival risks spike. Organisms whose life cycles synchronize with these hydrological phases gain a selective advantage, a phenomenon termed the flood pulse advantage. Inter-annual variability in flood patterns promotes coexistence of diverse life-history strategies, producing what Wantzen describes as sequential biodiversity, an exceptional richness that makes floodplains continental hotspots for species.

Crucially, the review argues that the same hydrological rhythms that structure biological diversity also structure cultural diversity. Culture, in this framework, is understood as learned behavior expressed in patterns handed down between generations or social groups, and there is increasing evidence that collective behavior among animal groups can also qualify. Like biological adaptations, cultural adaptations to the natural flow regime combine use strategies, such as profiting from seasonally migrating fish, with risk avoidance strategies, such as cattle transhumance, seasonal migration, or flood-adapted architecture. Archaeological evidence indicates human utilization of riverine resources dating back 500,000 years, with floodplains serving as primary settlement locations and rivers facilitating cultural dispersal across continents.

The historical examples are vivid. Precisely timed spring tree-harvesting for flood-adapted stilt-houses around Lake Constance dates back 7,000 years. Roman producers fermented fish sauce, garum, seasonally in the Loire floodplains. Fishing traditions followed the May migrations of the allis shad, the Mai-Fisch of German rivers, while monastic fishing rights on the Rhine reach back to the tenth century. Intangible heritage runs just as deep: harvest and fishery festivals on the Seine and Rhine, Celtic cults venerating the deity Rhenos, and beliefs about a mythical worm-like creature causing bank erosion in the Dordogne catchment. Even linguistic elements migrated up- and downstream along the Rhine via towboats and steamboats, while logs rafted from the Black Forest built Dutch cities.

To bring order to this richness, the team adapted a taxonomy originally devised under the auspices of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, expanding it with new riverine categories. The resulting typology spans five broad domains: habitation and transport, from UNESCO World Heritage sites like the Loire Valley to floating neighborhoods in Amsterdam and Rotterdam; primary uses, including rice cultivation in the Ebro Delta, cattle grazing on Loire meadows, and sand and gravel extraction that has incised the Loire riverbed by an average of 1.5 meters; secondary uses such as food processing, craftsmanship, and the Roses & Castles canal boat painting that emerged in nineteenth-century Britain; knowledge, belief systems and social practices, from the Loreley legend, which in reality encodes the dangerous hydrology of the Middle Rhine, to van Gogh’s Starry Night Over the Rhône and Smetana’s The Moldau; and a newly added fifth category on human wellbeing, covering local identity, temporal rhythm, riverine soundscapes, and the cooling effect rivers exert on urban climates.

The co-decline of biological and cultural diversity is now well documented. Since 1970, freshwater biodiversity populations have declined by 85 percent globally, a rate exceeding all other species groups, and nearly one-third of freshwater species face extinction. Europe’s riverscapes are the most fragmented on Earth, disrupted by over 1.2 million instream barriers. The review characterizes the cultural erosion in four systematic phases: first, loss of direct relationships, as traditional fishing methods and handicraft techniques like wattling disappear; second, loss of indirect relationships, as poetry, music, and spiritual connections to rivers fade; third, disconnection and replacement, as rivers lose their significance in community identity, accelerated by polluted water and physical distancing; and fourth, complete oblivion, when waterbodies have been buried in underground culverts and removed from public memory entirely.

The review also exposes a paradox in conservation policy itself. Regulatory bans on fisheries targeting the allis shad and the European eel in the Loire River, imposed to protect imperiled species, have inadvertently disrupted longstanding traditional fishing and jeopardized the cultural continuation of the practice. The interruption of professional fishermen’s long-term datasets on eel and shad migrations, once modestly funded by watershed agencies, now forces reliance on far more expensive sampling methods. Meanwhile, inland fishing has transitioned from an essential subsistence activity to a predominantly leisure pursuit, with most captured fish returned to the river, a shift that strips the practice of its original ecological and social function.

Yet the paper’s most constructive contribution is its four-category framework for reviving cultural practices as conservation tools. Inactive practices can be adapted for modern use, as with the Grande remontée, a biennial event featuring up to 100 traditional Loire boats that now advocates for granting juridical personhood to the river, or the renovated ship mill in Minden, Germany, which showcases renewable energy, though the authors caution that restoring historic mills with weirs creates new barriers to fish migration. Discontinued practices incompatible with conservation, such as wood rafting on the Rhine, survive as living history in open-air museums. The European dam removal movement, which dismantled 487 barriers across 15 countries in 2023 alone and reconnected over 4,300 kilometers of rivers, exemplifies the deliberate retirement of obsolete practices, reinforced by the EU Nature Restoration Law’s target of restoring 25,000 kilometers of free-flowing rivers by 2030.

Diminished but revivable practices offer perhaps the most dramatic success stories. River bathing, banned in the Seine since 1925, returned to global attention when Paris invested over €1.4 billion since 2015 to restore water quality, and the river successfully hosted six Olympic swimming events in 2024, with public bathing scheduled to resume in 2025. By 2023, 85 percent of Europe’s 22,081 monitored bathing sites achieved excellent quality standards. Grassroots movements such as the Swimmable Cities Alliance and Drinkable Rivers are working to make urban rivers accessible public spaces again. The authors stress, however, that new cultural activities can also harm biodiversity: kayak landings on Loire sandbanks disrupt ground-nesting birds, and recreational bathing in Munich’s Isar River has reduced habitat for the nase, a key restoration target. Geneva’s compensatory reedbed habitats upstream of new bathing sites on Lake Geneva show how careful planning can balance both.

The review concludes with a call for standardized, publicly accessible databases documenting successful biocultural conservation practices across European riverscapes, knowledge repositories the authors say are currently missing. Among emerging models, the Eurometropole of Strasbourg is planning an intra-urban park along an ancient Rhine floodplain channel combining human-river encounter sites with stream restoration, flood-retention zoning, and a thermal refuge for residents during heat waves. The underlying message is that cultural practices, far from being relics to red-list, are living tools to rediscover, evolve, and create new linkages with rivers and their floodplains, helping societies better respect, protect, restore, and newly create the pulsing wetlands on which both biodiversity and human culture depend.

Subject of Research: Biocultural diversity and cultural practices in European riverine floodplains

Article Title: Cultural practices in European riverine floodplains: formation, typology, co-decline of biocultural diversity, and emerging drivers of conservation and sustainable management

Article References: Wantzen, K. M., & Cao, Y. (2026). Cultural practices in European riverine floodplains: formation, typology, co-decline of biocultural diversity, and emerging drivers of conservation and sustainable management. Nature Conservation, 62, 195-215. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.62.156771

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/natureconservation.62.156771

Keywords: floodplains, biocultural diversity, river restoration, flood pulse, cultural heritage, Europe, conservation, wetlands, Cultural, practices, European, riverine

The logic behind managed re-alignment departs sharply from the traditional “hold the line” doctrine. Instead of endlessly raising sea walls, engineers breach or remove existing dykes and build new defences further inland, allowing tidal water to flow back over former farmland. The reconnected land becomes salt marsh, mudflat or reed bed, habitats that absorb wave energy, store flood water and lock away carbon. The review’s authors, drawing on perspectives from both nature conservation and coastal protection, trace how the technique has evolved since the 1960s in northwest Europe and why it is increasingly seen as a cornerstone of climate adaptation rather than a radical experiment.

One of the study’s most striking findings is the sheer scale of the effort. Compiling a database of 277 wetland conservation projects across eight countries, from Denmark to Spain, the researchers counted nearly 60,000 hectares of embanked wetlands that have been restored or are being reconnected to the sea. The United Kingdom leads in the number of projects, with 102, while the Netherlands, France and Germany have restored the largest total areas. Breaching dykes and regulated tidal exchange through sluices are the two most common techniques, together accounting for well over a hundred schemes. Yet the authors caution that even this impressive total remains marginal against roughly 1.5 million hectares of intertidal environments that were historically embanked on these coastlines.

Terminology, it turns out, has been a battleground in its own right. The term “managed re-alignment” was coined in the United Kingdom specifically to avoid the phrase “managed retreat”, which the public often heard as giving land away to the sea. The words evolved from setback to retreat to re-alignment, and each country has developed its own vocabulary shaped by policy priorities. In the UK, the focus has been flood protection and coastal adaptation; in France and Germany, most projects centre on wetland restoration; in the Netherlands, the approach is tied to making flood defences more sustainable, exemplified by the national Room for the River programme. In North America, similar work is described as hydrological or tidal marsh restoration, making international comparisons genuinely difficult.

Public perception has shifted alongside the language. The Medmerry scheme in West Sussex, England, divided local opinion in its early stages, but support grew as the restored site attracted birdwatchers, cyclists and walkers. In Germany, the Langwarder Groden project, designed to compensate for habitat lost to the Jadeweser Port container terminal, was poorly received at first; acceptance rose only after the community successfully pushed for hiking trails accessible to bicycles and people with reduced mobility. These cases illustrate a consistent lesson: restoration projects succeed socially when they deliver visible amenity value, not just ecological function.

Technically, the most promising frontier is the hybrid flood defence, which deliberately combines grey and green infrastructure. A re-aligned dyke can be built with a vegetated slope and a rock armour toe that transitions smoothly into a restored salt marsh foreshore. The marsh dissipates wave energy through friction with vegetation, attenuates storm surges and stores flood waters, potentially allowing the new dyke to be lower and less massive than a conventional one. The Hedwige-Prosperpolder project on the Dutch-Belgian border, completed in October 2022, demonstrates the concept in action: tidal inflow has returned, salt marshes are recolonising the former polder, and the old dykes were left standing as research structures, turning the site into an international living laboratory for flood protection science.

But the review is candid about the biophysical limits. A restored salt marsh can only keep pace with rising seas if sedimentation balances or exceeds erosion, a condition that depends on terrain elevation, sediment availability, plant colonisation and the local rate of sea-level rise. Where those conditions fail, the restored foreshore will gradually submerge and drown. Intriguingly, the authors argue that even such “temporary” wetlands have value, opening a window for societies to think through and prepare for longer-term retreat rather than confronting it abruptly.

The social dimension emerges as the decisive challenge. Managed re-alignment breaks a long cycle in which communities expect and demand hard engineering, and projects imposed without consultation have repeatedly provoked protest and delay. The Ploubalay polder in Brittany offers a telling case: after the Conservatoire du Littoral bought the medieval dyke system in 2014, a storm breach appeared in March 2020 during the first Covid-19 lockdown. When consultations resumed, the baseline had changed, and stakeholders ended up planning a new dyke further inland while salt marshes rapidly recolonised the breached polder, a scenario now cited in France as a textbook model of adaptation.

Compensation for farmers and landowners, the review stresses, is critical where land is lost or farming must end, whether through payment or land exchange. Loss of access to footpaths and drained mires can also inflame opposition, and even successful projects that draw tourists can wear out their welcome without careful visitor management. The authors identify the credibility, approachability and resources of the leading institution, along with early and genuine participation, as the key leverage factors determining whether communities accept change.

Ultimately, the review argues that managed re-alignment is not a single technique but a flexible framework spanning everything from sluice-controlled tidal exchange to the complete removal of defences and the inland relocation of economic activity. Its real promise lies in integrated spatial planning, where zoning allows mutually exclusive conservation goals, such as protecting freshwater mires while restoring tidal salt meadows, to coexist across a single landscape, as demonstrated on the East Zingst Peninsula on the German Baltic coast. Whether the approach becomes mainstream at a time when environmental achievements face political headwinds, the authors conclude, remains an open question, but the evidence from six decades of European practice suggests the sea walls of the future may be greener, lower and further back than the ones they replace.

Subject of Research: Managed re-alignment as a strategy for ecological restoration of European coastal floodplains

Article Title: Managed re-alignment: a multifaceted approach in ecological restoration of coastal floodplains

Article References: de la Vega-Leinert, A. C., Esteves, L. S., Andreu-Boussut, V., Quinio, L., Chadenas, C., van Loon-Steensma, J. M., & van den Hoven, K. (2026). Managed re-alignment: a multifaceted approach in ecological restoration of coastal floodplains. Nature Conservation, 62, 237-260. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.62.148691

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/natureconservation.62.148691

Keywords: managed re-alignment, coastal restoration, salt marsh, flood defence, wetlands, climate adaptation, nature-based solutions, dyke breaching, hybrid infrastructure, community engagement, North Sea, sea-level rise

The study classifies selected EU environmental and climate policies according to their impacts on wetlands and their reliance on high-quality wetlands to meet their own aims. The picture that emerges is one of supportive nature and water policies undermined by counteracting sectoral policies. The Birds Directive and Habitats Directive, collectively the cornerstone of EU biodiversity law, mandate the protection and restoration of numerous wetland habitat types — from coastal salt marshes and seagrass meadows to mires, bogs and fens — and of wetland-dependent species such as the European otter, the European sturgeon and the marsh fritillary. Where the Natura 2000 network they establish is fully implemented, it has demonstrably slowed species decline and habitat loss compared with non-protected areas. Yet the latest reporting period shows how far objectives remain unmet: only 17% of protected freshwater habitats achieve good conservation status, and 80% of protected fish and 60% of amphibians reliant on these habitats are in poor or bad condition, with freshwater migratory fish abundance down 75% since 1975.

Water management legislation tells a similar story of high ambition and weak delivery. The Water Framework Directive, adopted in 2000, aims to achieve good status for all water bodies by 2027 at the latest, promoting an integrated approach that respects entire ecosystems. Its implementation would highly benefit European wetlands, which regulate water quality and ecosystem health. Yet only 37% of Europe’s surface water bodies achieved good or high ecological status in 2021, with the main pressures being hydrological modification — dams and channelization — and agricultural pollution. The Fitness Check of the Directive identified underestimated ecological timescales, ineffective integration of sectoral policies, and excessive use of exemptions by Member States as key weaknesses, alongside a lack of comparable, centrally stored European monitoring data that delays detection of emerging stressors.

The Floods Directive recognizes wetlands’ role in natural flood management, promoting their use as natural water retention areas that absorb and slowly release floodwater, and holds potential for a paradigm shift from flood protection to integrated flood risk management. That potential has not been realized: reliance on gray infrastructure such as dams and dikes remains the norm, and neither aquatic biodiversity nor ecosystem services are directly mentioned in the Directive’s text. Climate legislation adds another layer. The LULUCF Regulation governs greenhouse gas accounting for land use, land use change and forestry, setting a union target of net removals of 310 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2030. Restoring drained peatlands as nature-based solutions has high potential for emission reductions, and reporting on emissions from managed wetlands will become mandatory in 2026. Yet the overall union target is unlikely to be met, and links with EU biodiversity policy remain weak.

Counteracting these supportive policies is the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, the biggest fund for land management in the Union. The analysis finds that the CAP needs significantly better targeting to reduce continued wetland damage. Intensive agriculture presents the most significant pressure for both surface and groundwaters in the EU, with little improvement since 2010, and hydrological modification for agricultural use, pollution and degrading management practices rank among the most severe pressures on protected wetland habitats. The newly introduced GAEC 2 standard aims to protect wetlands and peatlands by setting minimum conditions for direct payments, but it does not forbid continued drainage and ploughing of wetlands under agricultural use, and many Member States have exploited its flexibility to delay implementation until 2025 or set only weak national compliance criteria. Agri-environment-climate measures remain limited by small budgets and poor targeting, and the majority of CAP strategic plans have been assessed as insufficient for delivering biodiversity, climate and water objectives.

Renewable energy policy presents a second structural conflict. The Renewable Energy Directive pursues a binding 42.5% renewable share by 2030 and obliges Member States to designate renewable acceleration areas, while generalizing renewable energy as an overriding public interest — exempting projects from the usual Environmental Impact Assessment and subjecting them to the far less stringent Strategic Environmental Assessment. Hydropower expansion in particular can fragment rivers and disrupt wetland biodiversity, yet investments in hydropower are classified as environmentally sustainable under the EU Taxonomy Regulation, though experts suggest plants under 10 megawatts should be excluded due to their environmental impact. The analysis warns of a high potential to divert climate funds to gray infrastructure rather than nature-based solutions, locking in maladaptive practices.

Against this fragmented backdrop, the EU Nature Restoration Regulation, which entered into force in August 2024, represents a legislative milestone. It is the first EU-wide law prioritizing ecosystem restoration within and beyond Natura 2000, combining an overarching target — effective restoration measures covering at least 20% of land and sea by 2030 and all ecosystems in need by 2050 — with quantitative, time-bound targets for specific ecosystem types. Article 4 commits Member States to restoring at least 30% of habitats of community interest not in good condition by 2030, 60% by 2040 and 90% by 2050, covering all wetland habitat types designated under the Habitats Directive. Article 9 targets the removal of obsolete barriers to restore at least 25,000 kilometres of free-flowing rivers by 2030, defining connectivity in longitudinal, lateral and vertical terms — going beyond the Water Framework Directive’s longitudinal focus. Article 11 sets targets for drained peatlands in agricultural use, though only a fraction of mandated measures must involve rewetting.

The Regulation’s implementation architecture is designed to avoid the failures of its predecessors. Each Member State must submit a draft National Restoration Plan by 1 September 2026, identifying areas in need of restoration, specifying measures, financial resources and means of financing, and estimating co-benefits for climate mitigation and land degradation neutrality. The plans must also demonstrate synergies with sectoral policies such as forestry, agriculture and renewable energy — and indicate subsidies that would negatively affect implementation. By requiring this detail, the NRR aims to unify existing legislation, support the Nature Directives with deadlines and tools, and promote win-win scenarios for biodiversity, climate, disaster risk reduction and water resilience. Its adoption was hard-won: the original 2022 proposal was softened to gain support, a provisional trilogue agreement in November 2023 left adoption uncertain, and decisive votes passed only in February and June 2024, partly against political opposition fuelled by misinformation.

The political climate in which implementation now commences has shifted dramatically. The Green Deal is followed by a Clean Industrial Deal focused on competitiveness, and Omnibus packages launched throughout 2025 propose delaying, restricting or weakening many recently adopted Green Deal policies. The Commission’s proposal for the 2028–2034 Multiannual Financial Framework suggests a fundamental CAP reform lacking a ringfenced budget for agri-environmental schemes and replacing binding environmental standards with a more flexible farm stewardship system. Yet the case for upholding environmental ambitions remains as urgent as ever: Europe’s environment is declining across terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems, the European Climate Risk Assessment warns of ever more severe impacts on food security, health and infrastructure, and the State of Water report highlights the need to restore aquatic ecosystems and wetlands at landscape scale to buffer extremes, reduce flood risks and retain water in the landscape.

The analysis concludes that the NRR’s success hinges on political will, funding and cross-sector coherence, requiring a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach to writing, funding and implementing National Restoration Plans. Wetlands offer a tangible example of multifunctionality — nature’s most effective water managers, as the EU Water Resilience Strategy calls them — yet their contributions are not sufficiently recognized in climate, energy and agriculture policy. To make full use of synergy potentials, prevent counteracting measures and spend resources efficiently, policy integration must be actively pursued across water management, coastal defence, spatial planning, agricultural subsidies, renewable energy and disaster risk reduction. Scaling up wetland restoration through holistic implementation of the NRR is one crucial and urgent step, but it must be complemented by systemic transformations in the sectors currently driving wetland degradation. A transformative change for wetlands is needed in Europe.

Subject of Research: Environmental policy

Article Title: Wetlands in the EU policy context

Article References: Klusmann, C., Brotherton, P., Schiller, T., Wulf, S., & Marsden, K. (2026). Wetlands in the EU policy context. Nature Conservation, 62, 317-335. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.62.163780

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/natureconservation.62.163780

Keywords: wetlands, EU policy, Nature Restoration Regulation, biodiversity, climate change, Common Agricultural Policy, water resilience, peatlands, policy, context, scientific research

The research, published in the journal Vegetation Classification and Survey, was carried out within the Biodiversity Monitoring and Assessment Program, a collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution and the PERU LNG company. The study area spans the zone of influence of a natural gas pipeline crossing the departments of Ayacucho and Huancavelica, encompassing 31 bofedales between roughly 4,265 and 4,855 meters above sea level. Precipitation in the region is strongly seasonal, with 60 to 90 percent of total rainfall falling between December and March, and annual totals ranging from 480 to 817 millimeters at most sites, with one site reaching 1,232 millimeters. Mean air temperatures range from 9.7 to 19.7 degrees Celsius, and the wetlands overlap with rural Andean communities where alpacas, llamas, and introduced sheep are traditionally herded.

To capture the structure of these plant communities, the team established 127 permanent plots, each one square meter, in homogeneous patches of dominant vegetation and surveyed them annually during the austral dry season from 2017 to 2019, for a total of 378 plot assessments. Plant cover was measured with the point intercept method using a grid quadrat frame with 100 crossing points per plot, allowing precise estimates of cover for every species as well as ground cover categories such as moss, bare soil, dead vegetation, rock, water, and animal dung. The researchers also deployed soil moisture sensors configured for organic soils in 71 plots and installed water table monitoring wells at 11 sites, inserting PVC tubes into holes made with a peat sampler and measuring water levels every one to two months between July 2017 and December 2019.

The analytical toolkit was deliberately multivariate. A one-way Analysis of Similarities using the Bray-Curtis index tested whether plant communities differed in composition and abundance, while Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric tests identified significant differences in species richness, Pielou’s evenness, vegetation cover, cover of moisture indicator species, soil moisture, and water table depth. Non-metric multidimensional scaling on Hellinger-transformed cover values visualized compositional variability across years, and a Principal Component Analysis explored how communities distributed themselves along five structural descriptors. Sample-based rarefaction curves based on Hill numbers complemented the characterization of richness patterns.

The results are striking. Based on dominance and compositional patterns, the team identified 13 plant communities, with mean species richness per square meter ranging from 3.5 to 11.7. Seven of these communities were statistically distinct and remained consistent in their structural and compositional characteristics throughout the three-year study: communities dominated by Distichia muscoides, Rockhausenia pygmaea, Plantago rigida, Plantago tubulosa, Lachemilla diplophylla, Aciachne pulvinata, and Juncus stipulatus. The remaining six were rare, each recorded in a single plot per year, and lacked statistical support, meaning additional surveys are needed to confirm whether they represent independent communities or variants of their neighbors.

The Distichia muscoides community emerged as the undisputed centerpiece of the landscape. This hard cushion-forming community, usually associated with pools and very high soil moisture, was found in 90 percent of the sites, 55 percent of the plots, and along nearly the entire elevational range studied, from 4,292 to 4,850 meters. Its mean water table was the shallowest recorded, and its vegetation cover reached 95 percent. Yet the study makes clear that Distichia muscoides is not the only dominant species in bofedales, as is commonly assumed. Rockhausenia pygmaea, a peat-forming carpet species distributed from Venezuela to Argentina, anchored the second most common community, present in 42 percent of sites, and the data suggest it thrives in drier conditions than Distichia muscoides. Plantago rigida, a hard cushion species associated with drier wetland edges, formed a community with the lowest mean richness and the lowest evenness value of all thirteen communities, while Plantago tubulosa communities, found in 23 percent of sites, recorded the highest soil moisture values in the study.

Three species proved to be the ecological backbone of the region’s bofedales: Distichia muscoides, Plantago tubulosa, and Rockhausenia pygmaea occurred in 30 of the 31 sites. Because these species are cushion or carpet forming, average plant cover was high in most communities where they occurred, generally between 89 and 98 percent. The lowest cover values were recorded in the Aciachne pulvinata community, which had the highest percentage of dead cushions at 11 percent, and in a mixed community of sedges and cushions, which had the highest bare soil cover at 33 percent. Notably, Aciachne pulvinata, previously reported only as a companion species and associated with overgrazing, was dominant in a single site with low plant cover and a deeply recorded water table, suggesting its coverage increases where water levels decline.

The hydrological measurements, the first of their kind reported per plant community for bofedales, reveal a strongly seasonal water regime. The deepest water table records occurred in September and October, reaching depths greater than 90 centimeters in the dry season in at least one year in four of the five monitored communities, while the shallowest records came in February and December. According to the recent national classification by Peru’s National Institute for Research on Glaciers and Mountain Ecosystems, the monitored wetlands are considered seasonal because the water table sits deeper than 20 centimeters for several months of the year. The authors suggest that rainfall seasonality is probably not the only water source, since hillslope groundwater flowing from lateral moraines, talus, colluvium, or bedrock aquifers can also sustain these wetlands, especially in a landscape where streams, lakes, and glaciers are uncommon. A La Niña event between November 2017 and March 2018, usually associated with droughts in southern Peru, provided a natural test of community resilience, and the results showed stable values over time, with no permanent shifts in dominance or cover within the study sites.

In total, the team recorded 68 species belonging to 15 families and 45 genera, with Poaceae the most species-rich family at 24 species, followed by Asteraceae with 10. Species richness per square meter ranged from 1 to 15, but 75 percent of plots held only 1 to 8 species, and communities shared most of their species, between 85 and 100 percent, meaning differentiation rests more on abundance and dominance patterns than on wholesale floristic turnover. The communities with the highest mean richness were a mixed herbaceous community and the Lobelia oligophylla community, while the Plantago rigida community had the lowest. Pielou’s evenness ranged from 0.38 to 0.78 among the well-defined communities, and the Principal Component Analysis showed that the cover of moisture indicator species, overall plant cover, and bare soil percentage define the main axis of variability, clearly separating the drier communities from the wetter ones.

The broader implication is that bofedal heterogeneity operates at local site levels, with 84 percent of the studied wetlands containing two to three distinct plant communities, but also at landscape and regional scales. Recognizing this vegetational heterogeneity, the authors argue, is essential for setting realistic and site-specific goals for conservation, ecosystem management, and restoration, and for distinguishing the contributions of ecosystem services such as carbon storage, water regulation, and grazing. The study identifies three key knowledge gaps for Peru: the need to characterize floristic variation across latitudinal and longitudinal gradients through a comprehensive national analysis of plot-based studies, the need to improve the accuracy of remote-sensor mapping, since the official map misrepresents the size or location of several wetlands and omits others entirely, and the most complex challenge of understanding the factors that define the structure and functioning of these unique ecosystems in a context of rapid land-use and climatic change. As the high Andes warm and water regimes shift, these findings offer the first steps toward biological baselines and monitoring indicators that could determine whether these hidden wetland worlds endure.

Subject of Research: Plant communities of high-Andean bofedal wetlands across a trans-Andean transect in southern Peru

Article Title: Plant communities of high-Andean bofedal wetlands across a trans-Andean transect in southern Peru

Article References: Maldonado-Fonkén, M., Chuquillanqui, H., Vildoso, B., & Linares-Palomino, R. (2024). Plant communities of high-Andean bofedal wetlands across a trans-Andean transect in southern Peru. Vegetation Classification and Survey, 5, 203-218. https://doi.org/10.3897/vcs.115726

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/VCS.115726

Keywords: Plant, communities, high-Andean, bofedal, wetlands, across, trans-Andean, transect, southern, Peru, scientific research