Restoring and protecting a broken water cycle

Nature and biodiversity depend on water. The Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and the Nature Restoration Law address links between biodiversity, climate and water. Climate change accelerates the destruction of the natural world through more droughts, flooding, and wildfires, while the loss and unsustainable use of ecosystem services are, in turn, key drivers of climate change and water stress.  

But just as the crises are linked, so are the solutions. Nature is a vital ally in building a water resilient European Union. Nature-based solutions based in healthy and resilient ecosystems can help solve key water challenges, such as absorbing extreme precipitation through healthy soils, protecting coastlines against storm surges, preventing topsoil erosion during extreme weather events, stabilising slopes in mountain areas, cooling cities during heat waves, or providing ample amounts of clean, cool water during dry summer periods.  

Thursday's opening panel will take a look at these problems and solutions, and how we can look towards restoring nature and biodiversity, and thus, our broken water cycle.