Rivers are increasingly fragmented and degraded, yet the European Union Nature Restoration Regulation calls for restoring at least 25,000 kilometres of free-flowing rivers by 2030. Translating this ambition into effective implementation remains challenging because restoration priorities differ across ecological, social, economic, and governance contexts. Here, we synthesize expert knowledge from 45 countries through a structured, multi-step prioritization process to identify research priorities for restoring free-flowing rivers in Europe. We identified 27 priorities and analysed how expert background and spatial context influenced their ranking. Restoration priorities differed systematically depending on whether experts emphasized ecological integrity, community engagement, economic considerations, or governance capacity, revealing clear patterns in how disciplinary and professional perspectives shape implementation pathways. This demonstrates that restoration strategies cannot be universal but must be adapted to local and regional political, institutional, and ecological conditions. Building on these findings, we propose a structured prioritisation framework that links barrier removal, connectivity restoration, governance mechanisms, and policy instruments to context-specific needs. Together, our results provide an empirically grounded and implementation-oriented roadmap to support European Union Member States in delivering ambitious river restoration targets in a context-sensitive and socially robust manner.

Effective and locally supported river restoration requires attention to the social dimensions of rivers. This paper examines local perceptions of hydropower and restoration in the river Rönne å, an early case under Sweden’s National Plan for Modern Environmental Conditions for Hydropower. A mixed-methods approach, including a questionnaire and qualitative interviews, explores how inhabitants relate to their river and view the removal of three low-production dams, offering one of the most detailed assessments of stakeholder values in a Swedish hydropower river. The findings reveal important tensions between energy production and ecological restoration: While hydropower retains cultural legitimacy, support declines when ecological costs outweigh energy benefits. The river holds strong recreational, cultural, and symbolic meanings, embedding dam removals in broader sociocultural contexts rather than solely technical or ecological. These findings highlight the importance of participatory efforts and governance that align ecological goals with the diverse ways people relate to rivers.

Scientists feel a growing need to advocate for knowledge-driven policies to address climate change and biodiversity loss, yet few feel empowered to do so. During the Neretva Science Week (NSW) 2023, an international group of scientists conducted research on the threatened Neretva River in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and had the opportunity to engage with activists and journalists. We used a questionnaire to investigate the perspectives of these scientists on public engagement, scientific advocacy, ecological grief, and perceived political empowerment. To assess how these views might be influenced by participation in the NSW, we administered the questionnaire at the beginning of the NSW, immediately after, and three months following the event. We found high levels of ecological grief and moderate levels of perceived political empowerment. Scientists working outside of academia reported higher levels of empowerment, and local scientists had a more positive attitude towards being involved in decision-making about ecosystem management. Attitudes towards scientific advocacy were already mostly positive before the NSW and did not improve during the week, but most participants reported being motivated to increase their public engagement after the NSW. Although unlikely to change deeply rooted beliefs about the role of science, events such as the NSW can play a critical role in bridging the gap between academia and advocacy.

Wetlands are valuable and diverse environments that contribute to a vast range of ecosystem services, such as flood control, drought resilience, and carbon sequestration. The provision of these ecosystem services depends on their hydrological functioning, which refers to how water is stored and moved within a wetland environment. Since the hydrological functions of wetlands vary widely based on location, wetland type, hydrological connectivity, vegetation, and seasonality, there is no single approach to defining these functions. Consequently, accurately identifying their hydrological functions to quantify ecosystem services remains challenging. To address this issue, we investigate the hydrological regimes of wetlands, focusing on water extent, to better understand their hydrological functions. We achieve this goal using Sentinel-1 SAR imagery and a self-supervised deep learning model (DeepAqua) to predict surface water extent for 43 Ramsar sites in Sweden between 2020 and 2023. Clustering analysis grouped the wetlands based on the water extent predictions into five archetypes based on their hydrological similarity: “spring-surging”, “spring-flooded”, “summer-flooded”, “slow-drying”, and “summer-dry”. The archetypes represent great heterogeneity, with flashy regimes being more prominent at higher latitudes and smoother regimes found preferentially in central and southern Sweden. Additionally, many wetlands show exceptional similarity in the timing and duration of flooding and drying events, which only became apparent when grouped. We attempt to link hydrological functions to the archetypes, whereby headwater wetlands, such as spring-surging wetlands, have the potential to accentuate floods and droughts, while slow-drying wetlands, typical of floodplain wetlands, are more likely to provide services such as flood attenuation and water storage during low flow conditions. Additionally, although wetlands can be classified in a myriad of ways, we propose that classifying wetlands based on the hydrological regime derived from water surface extent is useful for identifying hydrological functions specific to the site and season and when discharge or water level data are not available. Lastly, we foresee that hydrological-regime-based classification can be easily applied to other wetland-rich landscapes to better understand the hydrological functions and identify their respective ecosystem services.

Land use changes can pose threats to natural ecosystems already challenged by anthropogenic pressures and increase societal exposure to river-related risks such as floods. In the Tagliamento river basin, a reference ecosystem for the restoration of Alpine rivers, land use planning was identified by locals as a major flood risk management issue. Here, we present evidence of the evolution of land use in the basin and explore the synergies between river conservation efforts and ecosystem-based land use planning. We present two storylines, one about a village that moved across the river and a second about a village that became an island. The analysis of the two storylines suggests a narrative that highlights (i) the preservation of natural regulatory functions in the middle course and (ii) the reactivation of fluvial corridors and wetlands in the lower course. Past documents highlighted that land use plans should account for threats posed by multiple hazardous phenomena (e.g., floods and droughts) to natural and human assets. We provide suggestions for future land use plans in the river basin integrating local knowledge and historical evidence into context-dependent storylines to convey risk-related concepts to the public.

Rice paddy soils have high organic carbon (OC) storage potential, but predicting OC stocks in these soils is difficult due to the complex OC stabilization mechanisms under fluctuating redox conditions. Especially in temperate climates, these mechanisms remain understudied and comparisons to OC stocks under natural vegetation are scarce. Semi-natural forests could have similar or higher OC inputs than rice paddies, but in the latter mineralization under anoxic conditions and interactions between OC and redox-sensitive minerals (in particular Fe oxyhydroxides, hereafter referred to as Fe oxides) could promote OC stabilization. Moreover, management-induced soil redox cycling in rice paddies can interact with pre-existing pedogenetic differences of soils having different degrees of evolution. To disentangle these drivers of soil OC stocks, we focused on a soil age gradient in Northern Italy with a long (30 + years) history of rice cultivation and remnant semi-natural forests. Irrespective of soil age, soils under semi-natural forest and paddy land-use showed comparable OC stocks. While, in topsoil, stocks of crystalline Fe and short-ranged Fe and Al oxides did not differ between land-uses, under paddy management more OC was found in the mineral-associated fraction. This hints to a stronger redox-driven OC stabilization in the paddy topsoil compared to semi-natural forest soils that might compensate for the presumed lower OC inputs under rice cropping. Despite the higher clay contents over the whole profile and more crystalline pedogenetic Fe stocks in the topsoil in older soils, OC stocks were higher in the younger soils, in particular in the 50–70 cm layer, where short-range ordered pedogenetic oxides were also more abundant. These patterns might be explained by differences in hydrological flows responsible for the translocation of Fe and dissolved OC to the subsoil, preferentially in the younger, coarse-textured soils. Taken together, these results indicate the importance of the complex interplay between redox-cycling affected by paddy-management and soil-age related hydrological properties.

Drawing on collective experience from ten collaborative research projects focused on the Global South, we identify three major challenges that impede the translation of research on sustainability and resilience into better-informed choices by individuals and policy-makers that in turn can support transformation to a sustainable future. The three challenges comprise: (i) converting knowledge produced during research projects into successful knowledge application; (ii) scaling up knowledge in time when research projects are short-term and potential impacts are long-term; and (iii) scaling up knowledge across space, from local research sites to larger-scale or even global impact. Some potential pathways for funding agencies to overcome these challenges include providing targeted prolonged funding for dissemination and outreach, and facilitating collaboration and coordination across different sites, research teams, and partner organizations. By systematically documenting these challenges, we hope to pave the way for further innovations in the research cycle.

Crop yields are affected by hydroclimatic and edaphic conditions, but their interacting roles are often neglected when assessing crop yields at the regional scale. Moreover, often used hydroclimatic conditions such as precipitation and temperature are not as physiologically linked to primary production and yields as actual evapotranspiration. Using statistical models, we quantified the combined effects of edaphic and hydroclimatic conditions on county yields of irrigated rice and rainfed corn, soybean, and spring and winter wheat in the USA (2000–2019). Precipitation and temperature, or actual evapotranspiration, aggregated during the growing season or before and after flowering/silk emergence, in interaction with soil sand content or bulk density, explained up to 87 % of the yield variability. However, actual evapotranspiration explained yields better than precipitation and temperature and their interactions for most combinations of crops and growth periods. At high actual evapotranspiration, yield plateaued or, for spring wheat, decreased. Yields were generally most sensitive to changes in hydroclimatic conditions during part of rather than the entire growing season, and most often after flowering. Soil texture and bulk density modulated the impacts of hydroclimatic conditions: corn and soybean yields were higher in finer soils compared with sandy soils under high evapotranspiration, but lower at low evapotranspiration. Additionally, the yield-maximizing precipitation decreased with sand content and increased with bulk density for most crops. Increasingly available actual evapotranspiration estimates, combined with soil properties, offer an alternative, and more physiologically-based, yield predictor over large climatic gradients to the more widely used precipitation and temperature.

Whale watching is considered a form of green tourism, but can affect marine ecosystems, impacting cetaceans’ behavior and potentially increasing acoustic pollution. A more sustainable whale-watching practice should employ a comprehensive approach involving all stakeholders, but whale-watching operators are rarely involved. We propose a method to assess whale–watching operators’ perceptions regarding the possible effects of their activity on marine fauna and preferred mitigation solutions, by means of online questionnaires and website communication strategies. Results from Canadian whale-watching operators show that they observe regulations regarding distance to whales but only partially perceive general vessels’ impacts on fauna. Three recognized whale-watching experts identify the need for continuous training targeted at operators, which should include the impacts on marine ecosystems. A continuous training framework is proposed that targets whale-watching operators in addition to tourists, and involves scientists in several steps of the approach. This study serves as a starting point to involve operators’ in order to advance towards a sustainable whale-watching tourism.

In arable systems, large amounts of nutrients, particularly of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P), are not efficiently converted into harvestable products and are lost from agricultural systems, with negative consequences for agricultural productivity and the environment. These nutrient losses are mediated by hydroclimatic processes causing nutrient leaching and volatilization. We quantify over the period 1987-2012 how water availability through the evaporative ratio (actual evapotranspiration divided by precipitation) and irrigation, agricultural practices, and edaphic conditions jointly affect nutrient use efficiencies in 110 agricultural catchments in the United States. We consider N and P use efficiencies (nitrogen use efficiency [NUE] and phosphorous use efficiency [PUE]) defined as ratios of catchment-scale N and P in harvested products over their respective inputs, as well as the NUE/PUE ratio, as an indication of catchment-scale N and P imbalance. Both efficiencies increase through time because of changes in climate and agronomic practices. Setting all else at the median value of the data set, NUE and PUE increased with evaporative ratio by 0.5% and 0.2% when increasing the evaporative ratio by 20% and by 4.9% and 18.8% in the presence of irrigation. NUE was also higher in catchments where maize and soybean were dominant (increasing by 2.3% for a 20% increase in maize and soybean fractional area). Soil properties, represented by mineral soil texture and organic matter content, had only small effects on the efficiencies. Our results show that both climatic conditions and crop choice are important drivers of nutrient use efficiencies in agricultural catchments.