The Netherlands is a low-lying country where the rivers, the IJsselmeer and the North Sea provide an abundance of water. Geographically speaking, this area is a delta. The Delta Programme was designed to protect the Netherlands against flooding and to secure freshwater supplies.

The river will be given more room at more then 30 locations covered by the 'Room for the River' programme. The main objectives of this programme are to complete the flood protection measures by 2015 and to improve the overall environmental quality in the river region.

The coastal mangrove forest is the buffer between land and sea, playing the critical role of protecting the land and coastal communities from storms, wind and erosion. The short documentary takes us to an island in Southern Thailand illustrating how mangroves have depleted greatly in the last 50 years, how people have been affected, and shows what is being done to restore these habitats to secure a more sustainable future.

Together with CEC's strategic input, IUCN's Eastern and Southern Africa's Regional Programme published this educational documentary to show how communities living around the Mt Elgon in Kenya and Uganda use natural solutions, which are always available, to help tackle environmental challenges efficiently.

EKLIPSE - BiodivERsA Webinar, 4th of October 2017

"Nature-based Solutions:
Pandora box or reconciling concept?"

More information:
www.eklipse-mechanism.eu
www.biodiversa.org

Find out about the importance of nature-based solutions in tackling one of humanity's greatest challenges.

This video showcases the work of the City of Fort Collins Natural Areas Department's restoration at McMurry and North Shields Ponds, lowering unnaturally steep riverbanks and removing an abandoned diversion structure which improved the habitat on the Cache la Poudre River. In 2014, the Natural Areas Department received two Blue Grama awards from the Colorado Open Space Alliance for their outstanding conservation work.

The ThinkNature project animation explains what Nature-based Solutions (NBS) are and how the ThinkNature Project and Platform aim to use this NBS as a better instrument to overcome development challenges and needs. Nature-based Solutions are an important topic on the EU Research and Innovation policy agenda. The ThinkNature project is part of Horizon 2020, the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation and has received funding under grant agreement No 730338.

Pieter van der Zaag is a professor of integrated water resources management at the UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education in Delft, The Netherlands and professor at Delft University of Technology. This talk was presented on Sept. 15, 2016 as part of the Water Institute's ongoing WaterTalks series.