Europe’s largest water conservation project
Improve Aquatic LIFE
Improve Aquatic LIFE is the name of Europe’s largest water management project, aimed at restoring aquatic environments in wetlands, lakes, rivers, and coastal waters across nine different counties in southern Sweden.
Improve Aquatic LIFE is primarily funded by the EU, as well as by the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, and other project partners.
Measures from Source to Sea
Over the course of seven years, hundreds of different initiatives will be implemented to improve the situation for endangered species and restore impacted aquatic environments from source to sea. Migration barriers will be addressed, habitats will be restored, and more natural flows will be reestablished to help endangered species, improve the resilience of water systems to climate change, strengthen biodiversity, and provide access to ecosystem services such as recreation and increased nature tourism.
Improve Aquatic LIFE is a win-win project with high sustainability values for nature and future generations.
17 collaborating partners
17 different partners are participating in the project. These are the County Administrative Boards of Värmland, Västra Götaland, Halland, Skåne, Blekinge, Kronoberg, Jönköping, Kalmar, and Östergötland; the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management; the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency; Karlstad University; the University of Gothenburg; Lund University, the City of Helsingborg, the Municipality of Tingsryd, and the Swedish Anglers Association.
500 nature conservation initiatives in nine different counties
Project areas
Over the course of seven years, from 2024 to 2031, the project partners, together with many other stakeholders, will implement over 500 measures to improve our aquatic environments and establish viable populations of threatened species. This will involve removing migration barriers, constructing wildlife passages or other types of fishways, restoring habitats in rivers and coastal waters, and improving the water retention capacity of water systems by restoring floodplains along rivers, wetlands in forest and agricultural landscapes, or coastal areas.
The Improve Aquatic LIFE project will carry out several major initiatives from source to sea. In the forests of Värmland, far up in the Göta River catchment area, more than 50 road culverts that currently act as barriers to migration will be repaired, and a three-hectare eelgrass area will be created at the Stenungsund coastal Natura 2000 site. Far up River Rönne å in Skåne, habitats for salmon and sea lamprey will be recreated and in Skälderviken, where River Rönne å flows into the sea, stone reefs will be recreated where “stone fishing” was once carried out, which emptied areas of stones and boulders. The measures will restore lost habitats, thereby strengthening populations of threatened species, increasing biodiversity and helping to boost key ecosystem services such as recreation, nature tourism and support for local economies.
More resilient populations
Target species
The Improve Aquatic LIFE project will employ a variety of measures to improve the situation for many species. In a large number of rivers, lakes, and coastal waters, habitats will be restored to create more viable populations for several threatened species—such as the Freshwater pearl mussel, Thick shelled river mussel, salmon, and sea lamprey—which are the project’s target species. Numerous other species will also benefit and become more viable through the extensive restoration work that the project partners will carry out.
Two Endangered Mussels
The Freshwater pearl mussel and the Thick shelled river mussel are two critically endangered mussel species. Mussels play a vital role as natural water purifiers in our rivers, and where there are thriving populations, water quality is usually good and there is rich biodiversity. The Improve Aquatic LIFE project will implement measures to improve the situation for these mussels. In several rivers, including the River Lyckebyån, River Bräkneån, and Bråån, the populations of the freshwater pearl mussel and the thick shelled river mussel will be strengthened by introducing mussel larvae into the rivers to infest their host fish. This is because the mussels depend on host fish to reproduce, and the two species prefer slightly different host fish. It is therefore important to also take measures in the habitats of their host fish to increase the presence of mussels.
Two Endangered Fish Species
: The populations of migratory fish species such as salmon and sea lamprey are both in a critical situation. The Improve Aquatic LIFE project will implement measures to improve their situation. Among other things, migration barriers will be removed and fishways constructed to improve connectivity—that is, free passage up and down the river from source to sea. To further improve conditions for salmon and sea lamprey, as well as a large number of other fish species, habitats such as spawning grounds and nursery areas will also be restored in a number of rivers and coastal areas within the project. Overall, fish survival and production can increase from current levels in several of the project’s rivers
17 cooperating actors
Project partners
Reporting from the projects
Latest news
Read about events in our project areas and interesting facts about the target species.
