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Europe¡¯s environment is in an alarming state, with climate change expected to further aggravate the situation. This substantially threatens economic prosperity, human wellbeing and social peace. Our society and economy need systemic transformative change, and ecosystem restoration integrated into nature-based solutions (NbS) lies at its heart. Freshwaters holds pivotal role in this context: ¡°Water is life¡± and essential for most economic sectors, and its condition depends on how the surrounding land is managed. Long tradition and extensive restoration knowledge render freshwater restoration the ideal demonstrators of the necessary change.

MERLIN capitalises on the many successful freshwater restoration projects existing across Europe. For 17 flagship projects, social, economic and environmental success factors will be analysed, generating a blueprint for proficient NbS implementation suited for immediate replication. Besides best technical practice designing NbS at landscape-scale, inclusive governance and green economy benefiting local communities are integrated into the cases. With investing 10.2 million € in further hands-on upscaling measures along scalability plans, MERLIN will make these 17 projects radiant beacons of innovation for the systemic change.

Upscaling to the European level, MERLIN will identify landscapes with high potential and priority for transformative restoration, particularly focussing on essential ecosystem services, biodiversity targets, and climate change mitigation and adaption. Economic analysis of selected European regions will elucidate environmental value chains as well as costs and benefits of NbS to demonstrate the opportunities for green business resulting from transformative restoration. Drawing from a spectrum of possible financing options, MERLIN will delineate models for private investment into restoration alongside public funding, tailored to contexts specific for economic sectors and countries. MERLIN¡¯s initiatives will maximise synergies across economic sectors, and transparently mediate trade-offs where necessary.

MERLIN closely collaborates with local communities and key economic sectors such as agriculture, water supply, navigation and insurance industry. The main focus is to co-develop win-win solutions spearheading systemic economic, social and environmental change, providing proposals at sectoral and public policies level to maximise opportunities and overcome obstacles. The collective knowledge and experience will feed into NbS networks operationalised by MERLIN¡¯s virtual marketplace. The innovations will be substantially multiplied by the MERLIN Academy addressing the community of practice, restoration project convenors, communities, investors and policy makers. MERLIN results will be translated to non-scientific language, as public acceptance is a key limiting factor for restoration. MERLIN is designed to seize the opportunity for transformative ecosystem restoration, mainstreaming NbS as a cornerstone for the urgent systemic change of our society.