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Floodplain reconnectionActive

Cologne Floodplain Reconnection

Breaching of historical embankments to reconnect 480 ha of Rhine floodplain near Cologne, restoring natural flood retention and riparian habitat.

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Niederrhein · HydroBASINS L8: 2020045080
Apr 2023 – ongoing
Wasser- und Schifffahrtsamt Rhein / WWF Deutschland / NRW Umweltministerium
480 ha · € 3.2M
Sub-basin location
HydroBASINS Level 8 polygon

Sub-basin boundary: HydroBASINS Level 8 (HYBAS_ID 2020045080) · Polygon is approximate at this zoom

Basin Health Impact
Before vs. projected after project contribution
Water Quantity+6 pts
Before
64Risk
After
70Good
Water Quality+3 pts
Before
78Good
After
81Good
Riparian Habitat+14 pts
Before
74Good
After
88Good
Composite BHS contribution+8 pts

Weighted: Quantity × 0.45 + Quality × 0.20 + Habitat × 0.35

Ground Validation
IoT sensors · Galileo/EGNOS certified
Lobith Discharge Gauge
Discharge
Galileo ±0.3m
Sentinel-1 SAR coherence
Satellite: 1910 m³/sIn-situ: 1840 m³/s
96% agreement
Rotterdam Estuary Turbidity Probe
Turbidity
Galileo ±0.4m
Sentinel-2 B04 reflectance
Satellite: 19.8 NTUIn-situ: 18.4 NTU
93% agreement

In-situ readings from Galileo/EGNOS-certified IoT devices validate satellite-derived indices. High agreement confirms satellite-based BHS scoring for CSRD E3-4 discharge evidence.

Delivery metrics

Budget
€ 3.2M
Area
480 ha
Timeline
Apr 2023 – ongoing
Status
Active
Delivered
480 ha floodplain reconnected; est. 2.1 hm³ retention capacity restored
Compliance exports
Two primary live clicks: project + compliance JSON
  • CSRD
    ESRS E3-4Water consumption, basin stress and restoration contribution evidence
  • CSDDD
    Article 8Adverse-impact mitigation programme linked to basin outcomes
  • SBTN
    Step 3 — QuantityFreshwater target-setting inputs at sub-basin level
  • TNFD
    LEAP — LocateNature-risk evidence for geolocated restoration activity
Using live score context
Using live basin score
Audit trail
Replay the evidence lineage for this stewardship project
  1. Project geography
    HydroBASINS Level-8 anchor and project centroid used for repeatable basin-level evidence generation.
    hybas=2020045080
center=6.95000, 50.95000
  2. Evalscript versions
    Pinned, content-addressed evalscripts. Replayable byte-for-byte.
    sentinel2-bhs-combined-v1@static-snapshot
outputs=ndwi,mndwi,ndvi,ndmi,turbidity,chla,bare
  3. Source scenes
    Recent STAC scene IDs attached to the basin score run for audit replay.
    No STAC scene IDs attached
  4. Scoring function
    Basin sub-indices weighted via bhs-v0.5.0.
    quantity*0.45 + habitat*0.35 + quality*0.2
  5. Computation provenance
    Run signature stored with the exported project evidence pack.
    run=static-snapshot · at=2026-04-28T19:55:06.667Z

Partners

Operator
Wasser- und Schifffahrtsamt Rhein
Partner
WWF Deutschland / NRW Umweltministerium

Basin context

Rhine Basin
BHS 71 · 2 projects · 58M people
View all projects in Rhine Basin →