Post by Deltares

🌱⚙️ During the Mission Ocean & Waters Forum (4–6 March), Deltares expert Ellis Penning was invited to contribute as both speaker and panelist. As a key expert involved in MERLIN, SpongeScapes and SpongeWorks — and as a strong advocate for Nature-based Solutions and eco-hydraulic research — Ellis brought valuable perspectives on how innovation can strengthen Europe’s water resilience.   In her contributions, Ellis highlighted that: The biggest barriers to scaling Nature-based Solutions are not the technical aspects. The real challenge lies in implementation: ensuring alignment with local stakeholders’ needs, financial and legal frameworks, spatial planning, and governance structures. The EU can gain significantly by linking project lessons to EU‑level policymaking, accelerating the uptake of resilient landscape solutions across Europe. 💬✨Ellis: “The European Water Resilience Strategy encourages enhancing sponge functioning in landscapes to strengthen climate resilience. I believe this strategy can truly unite policy goals across food, health, biodiversity, and climate adaptation.”   🌾🔍 She further shared her insights at the ‘Freshwater, Wetlands and Sponge Landscapes for a Resilient Europe’ meeting on 10 March, engaging policymakers, agencies, NGOs, practitioners, and science‑policy experts.    Hopefully sharing this knowledge continues to help bridge science and policy for a more resilient European landscape. 🙏 #EnablingDeltaLife #NaturebasedSolutions