Though the Ecosystem Service (ESS) approach is considered promising for integrated ecosystem management, its operationalisation is hampered by the lack of agreed evaluation instruments. To demonstratethe suitability of a structured ESS evaluation, the authors, among them Ecologic Institute's Dr. Manuel Lago and Gerardo Anzaldúa, conducted a case study estimating the impact of therestoration of the Emscher River and its tributaries on the provision, use and benefit of ESS.

Ecologic Institute contributed to a practical guide for local-level evaluations of changes in ecosystem services. The approach helps to associate such changes to specific water management measures and enables both monetization and qualitative appraisal of impacts. Possible links between WFD State parameters and specific ESS classes are proposed. The article is available for download.

The DESSIN Ecosystem Services Evaluation Framework is a methodology used to systematically assess the impacts of innovative solutions to water-related challenges from the environmental, economic and social perspectives. The framework consists of the DESSIN Cookbook, a Companion Document, a Supplementary Material File and a Case Reporting Template. The framework is aimed at decision-makers, practitioners and technology developers who want to evaluate the potential impacts of new technologies and water management measures on freshwater ecosystems and their services. The documents are available for download.

The overall goal of the DESSIN ESS software system is to support users implementing the DESSIN ESS evaluation framework and sustainability assessment. This document describes how the software should do this, from the end-user perspective. The document is organized into so-called "user stories". Each user story describes a task that a user would like the software to perform, and explains why performing the task provides value to the user. The users stories are organized into "epics", which are groups of similar stories. Most of the user stories are written from the perspective of an evaluation lead carrying out an ESS assessment, as this was thought to be the most likely user of the system. The software framework presented here was developed by DHI, ECOLOGIC, SINTEF, and IWW in collaboration with the DESSIN user group, which consists of the demo site representatives who will be the end users of the software.

<p>The framework and a practical example of its application were presented by Gerardo Anzaldua (Ecologic Institute), who led the working group developing the framework, and Nadine Gerner (Emschergenossenschaft), who led the application of the framework on three case study sites in a webinar on 15. September. The webinar includes an ample Q&amp;A session with an extended group of members from the framework development team and lasted over an hour. You also can download the Power Point presentation that was used for the webinar.</p>

Innovative ways to manage the urban water cycle are required to deal with an ageing drinking and waste water infrastructure and new societal imperatives. This paper examines the influence of water governance in enabling transformations and technological innovation uptake in urban water management. A governance assessment framework is developed and applied in three case-studies, examining different scales and types of innovations used to tackle challenges in European urban water management. The methodology combines documentary analysis and interviews to reconstruct historical storylines of the shift in the water governance of urban water management for each site. The research provides detailed empirical observations on the factors conducive to innovation uptake at the local level. Critical governance factors such as commitment to compromise, the necessity to build political support, and the role of "entrepreneurs" and coalitions are highlighted. The paper also explores the role of discursive strategies and partnership design, as well as that of regulative, economic and communicative instruments, in creating barriers and opportunities to initiate and secure change. A number of recommendations targeted at innovators and water managers are presented in the conclusion.

Within the European water research project "Demonstrate Ecosystem Services Enabling Innovation in the Water Sector (DESSIN)" a policy brief on governance factors conducive to innovation in the urban water sector was published. Rodrigo Vidaurre and Josselin Rouillard from Ecologic Institute, provide five key recommendations on the types of incentives and stakeholder management strategies that can be employed to encourage innovation uptake in urban water management. The policy brief is targeted to technology companies and innovators and available for download.

Within the European water research project "Demonstrate Ecosystem Services Enabling Innovation in the Water Sector (DESSIN)," a policy brief on governance factors conducive to innovation in the urban water sector was published. Josselin Rouillard and Rodrigo Vidaurre from Ecologic Institute, provide five key recommendations on policy frameworks, incentives and stakeholder management strategies that can be employed to encourage innovation uptake in urban water management. The policy brief is targeted to water managers and policy makers and is available for download.

This document provides a state-of-the-art review to support the conceptual and practical development of the DESSIN ESS Evaluation Framework. It briefly presents the state of affairs regarding the measurement of changes in ESS, including description of existing classification systems, analytical frameworks and economic valuation methodologies. The challenges associated with spatial and temporal variations of ESS are considered and an approach to define and measure sustainability is presented. Finally, the next steps in the work plan of Work Area 1 are outlined.

This Deliverable reports the results of the assessment of governance factors conducive to innovation uptake carried within the context of the FP7 DESSIN project. The research is based on the analysis of innovation uptake in the three DESSIN mature case-study sites (i.e. Aarhus, Emscher, Ebro) which had welcomed some successful transformation in urban water management. A number of recommendations are presented in the conclusion to inspire future "entrepreneurs" in promoting innovation uptake in urban water management. The report is available for download.

Urban water use is a major pressure impacting the ecological status of European rivers. The DESSIN project promotes more sustainable, adaptive, and cost-effective urban water management through the testing and promotion of innovations. The project aims to demonstrate the benefits of innovative solutions to deal with water challenges, with a focus on water quality and water scarcity. In addition, it develops a methodology for the valuation of ecosystem services, which will help catalyse for innovation uptake.