River basin management is a holistic approach to managing water resources within the natural boundaries of a river system, taking into account the interconnectedness of land, water, and ecosystems. As climate change brings rising pressures—like floods, droughts, and water quality issues—both the EU and China are facing shared challenges. Working together on river basin management offers the opportunity to exchange knowledge, lessons and best practice to improve resilience and find sustainable solutions that benefit people and nature.
The longstanding cooperation between Europe and China on integrated river basin management supports common goals around clean water, healthy ecosystems, and long-term climate adaptation. In addition to strengthening climate resilience in both regions, it supports the global push towards sustainable development and biodiversity protection. For the EU, this approach contributes to key objectives under the European Green Deal and the Water Framework Directive.
Key interventions implemented to date around integrated river basin management include:
(2017-2022) CEWP work under Lots 1 and 3:
- River Basin Management and Ecological Security (Lot 1) International Office for Water, France (Lead Partner)
- Water and Urbanization (Lot 3) Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment-Rijkswaterstaat, The Netherlands (Lead Partner)
(2024-2027) EU-China Cooperation on Water Project interventions in coordination with EU Member States:
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(2025) EU-China RESUREXION (Multiscale REsilience Strategy for Urban areas and their River basins to EXtreme weather conditIONs), co-organised and co-implemented with The Netherlands - Rijkswaterstaat -.
This intervention aims to enhance EU and China cities and communities’ capacity to minimise and mitigate the effects of droughts and floods.
Focusing on urban water and catchment, the activities extend the works accomplished in past phases of cooperation. A series of exchanges, workshops and visits between European and Chinese counterparts will contribute to the establishment of policy recommendations on integrated river basin management plans, with focus on flood risk management with consideration of the emerging drought risk. Selected European and Chinese pilots will help identify and test resilience strategies which will be the base for the drafting of Guidelines for a multi-scalable resilience strategy for EU and China. -
(2025) River Basin Twinning: building on CEWP (France / OiEau-led) work to date and acting in close coordination with OiEau and its counterparts, the assignment is to facilitate exchanges of best practices, lessons and innovative solutions of water basin management through technical collaboration and governance alignment between EU and Chinese river basins. The activities provide support to the formalisation of Twinning between EU and Chinese river basins with focus on Nature-based Solutions and digital river management.
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(2025) Payment for Ecosystem Services: the action offers continuation to CEWP Évora University-led (Portugal) policy and technical cooperation with China on river restoration and directly contributes to the core EU DG ENV priority to cooperate with China on (water) ecosystem restoration.
Through studies and workshops, the project aims to facilitate China-EU exchange of best practices, lessons and innovative solutions for payments for ecosystem services as a tool for more sustainable management of natural resources and to incentivise ecosystem service conservation. The knowledge gathered shall enhance the ecological health and functionality of river systems in Europe and China, increasing ecosystems’ resilience and improving the quality and availability of water for local communities and biodiversity.