Conservation organizations, gravel extraction companies, and the local government teamed up to create a 45km stretch of rewilded river with increased flood prevention capacity.

Nature-based Intervention:

This rewilding project focuses on taking a previously human-altered river and returning it to a more natural state in order to facilitate increased flood protection and biological regeneration. This was done through collaborating with gravel dredging companies which wished to harvest gravel from the Meuse river. During the harvesting process they helped to widen the river, lower riverbanks and therefore expand the overall floodplain. This is the largest river restoration project in the Netherlands with it covering a 45km stretch of the river called Grensmaas. They also put 200 ha of riverside lands under naturalistic grazing regimes to help facilitate regeneration. Beaver (Castor fiber) and otter(Lutra lutra) were also reintroduced to the landscape.

Overview of context and outcomes:

This region of the Netherlands has been historically prone to flooding with major floods in 1993 and 1995 leading to residents to push for solutions to the problem. In 1980, the Meuse river system, and specifically the Grensmaas, was the only river system in the Netherlands without boat traffic. This is what had originally made it a focus point for the sand and gravel industry as a source of possible extractions. The Grensmaas river portion also flows from north to south and acts as an important ecological corridor between the upper and lower reaches of the river Meuse.