Wildlife-friendly banks along rivers and canals

In the last 10 years there has been a steady increase in the length of wildlife-friendly banks along rivers and canals. These banks offer suitable habitats for bank-dwelling plants and animals.

Trends

The total length of wildlife-friendly banks along Dutch waterways has tripled since 1989: from 150 km to 440 km. In some waterways a large proportion of the bank has been made wildlife-friendly. In Twente, for example, 81 km of the 132 km of canal have such banks.

The construction of dikes along rivers and the sheet piles along canals have created a sharp boundary between water and land. Wildlife-friendly banks provide a more gentle transition. This is achieved by making the dike slopes and the canal banks less steep, or by constructing shallow zones behind the sheet piles. Wildlife-friendly banks offer suitable habitats for many plants, insects, fish, amphibians, birds and mammals, and they also reduce the numbers of drowned wildlife, notably mammals.