Post by Deltares

🎙️Once crystal-clear waters are now becoming polluted, suffering from algae blooms and a rapid loss of plants and animals. Today, half of all European lakes have poor ecological quality. Listen to the first episode of the FutureLakes podcast to explore what went wrong, and more importantly, what is being done to restore water quality and biodiversity.   In this episode, Sacha de Rijk, freshwater ecology and water quality specialist at Deltares, joins Laura Härkönen (Finnish Environment Institute (Syke) - Suomen ympäristökeskus (Syke), and @Martin Søndergard (Aarhus University, Denmark) to discuss the Future Lakes projects.   💧 The three‑year FutureLakes project is coordinated by Norway, a country with more than 20,000 large lakes, each about the size of 15 football fields.   Future Lakes aims to develop practical, scalable knowledge for ecological restoration, together with local communities.   A total of 6 European lakes are being used as real‑world test sites for innovations that integrate ecological, social, and economic systems. These 6 locations will form a future blueprint for restoring Europe’s lakes.   🏝️ Our expert Sacha talks about her experience working on the large-scale restoration of the Markermeer in the Netherlands, where an archipelago of new islands — the Marker Wadden — was created.    💬 Sacha: “Each year, more species returned — even fish species. A large restoration operation takes time, money, and effort, but the practical lessons and nature recovery are incredibly valuable.”   This project was unique: ✔️ Islands built from sand and sediment from the lake ✔️ Rapid arrival of birds and vegetation (within one year!) ✔️ Improving water clarity on the windward side ✔️ Continuous monitoring, measuring, and learning by Dutch scientists    🎧 Listen to the podcast via this link, or wherever you listen to your fav podcasts > https://lnkd.in/enaCUDN6 #EnablingDeltaLife #FutureLakes #podcast