Meeting in Aalborg, Denmark - May 2018
The WaterCoG Team met on May 2nd May at the dramatic Musikkens Hus in Aalborg, to exchange ideas and update on progress.
The meeting on day 1 started with progress updates from each partner about their pilot projects.
Day 2 consisted of a session on Ecosystem Services and how best to communicate best practice findings. In particular, the team was introduced to ecosystem visualisation tool by Westcountry Rivers Trust and the Ecosystem Services Opportunities Mapping developed through the EU LIFE project, Natural Course.
The session was followed by a site visit to fjord gardens - a ‘mussel and seaweed garden’ in Aalborg, a place where the community can sign up to farm their own seaweed and mussels. The project has resulted in the members saying that the project has made them eat more fish, seafood and other marine foods, and 73% say they have become more aware of the environment in the Limfjord or the Limfjord state.
Day 3 the team visited 2 wetland sites to see how Denmark had implemented larger river valley restoration wetlands (>300 ha) on farmland, learning about how they had sourced suitable sites, engaged with the farmers (often >30 farmers) to ensure complete community buy-in to the process and how they had tackled issues with reducing nitrate levels in the water.
The next meeting will be held in September in Groningen, Netherlands.