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Human well-being depends on products and services that aquatic ecosystems provide. But historically, development has largely ignored this dependency.

The Graeme Hall Swamp is linked to the St. Lawrence Lagoon and is the last remaining coastal wetland in Barbados. The wetland has been designated as a Natural Heritage Conservation Area and has also been established as one of two Caribbean Coastal Marine Productivity Programme (CARICOMP) monitoring sites in Barbados. The Graeme Hall Watershed, located in the south of Barbados, spans 1,156 acres. The most significant element of this watershed is the Graeme Hall Swamp. 

The handbook provides an insight into the key issues linked to managing and restoring aquatic ecosystems. It illustrates the benefits provided by aquatic ecosystems and gives practical examples where the application of IWRM answered to economic challenges without jeopardizing ecosystems. It draws on real-life experiences of public authorities, water practitioners and local communities in managing national and transboundary basins. This Handbook was produced jointly by GWP and the International Network of Basin Organizations (INBO) in order to capture experiences with planning and implementing IWRM.

The Poilcy Paper analyzed regional and national ploicies and strategies in enviroment and natural resources management and identified opportunities, challenges and actions required to integrate climate change adaptation approaches into trans-boundary ecosystem management in East Africa.

In the Spanish National Strategy for River Restoration (NSRR, Estrategia Nacional de Restauracion de Ríos), it has been identified that most riparian environments do not possess environmental or ecological status. The restoration of the Orbigo river benefitted from the implementation of various Natural Water Retention Measures (NWRM), such as levee removal and setbacks, rip-rap removal, recovery of secondary channels, floodplain reclamation, and re-afforestation of the riparian zone with native species.

Small and medium size communities in Central Europe are faced with severe problems of waste water management. When it comes to waste water management, small settlements (with less than 2,000 inhabitants) lie outside of the concern of water managers and decision makers. A group of citizens initiated a cooperation process with civic associations, members of local authorities and later the cooperation included local small entrepreneurs as well as foreign investors to actualize a number of local projects and initiatives.

The Matura watershed is located in the eastern region of Trinidad. The major threats to watershed degradation originate from anthropogenic activities that are unsustainably executed. Several mitigation measures were initiated by the regulatory agencies that constantly monitor the watershed as well as the community-based organisation, Nature Seekers.

The Upper Mur River is considered as one of the most ecologically valuable rivers of Austria due to the natural reproduction for the Danube salmon. The systematic regulation of the river began at the end of the 19th century, distributaries were cut off and large areas were drained in order to intensify agricultural land use. Restoration measures started in 1997 in the area of the Upper Mur and the “Grenzmur”.  Various projects facilitated the renaturation of more than 22 km both in the upper course and the Slovenian border section of the river. A policy issue highlighted by the project is the importance to reconcile key needs for nature conservation with demands for renewable energy generation from small hydro power plants.