Water Resilience – Between Urgency and the Culture of Beavers

On Monday, 17 November 2025, a series of events dedicated to analysing and identifying solutions for the sustainable management of water resources in the Carpathian Mountains — known as Romania’s “water tower” — took place in Miercurea Ciuc.
The discussions highlighted a dramatic truth: the mountains are gradually losing their traditional role as a “water reservoir”, with direct consequences for communities and ecosystems. Water is becoming a vital, urgent topic that concerns us all.
One solution may come from an unexpected direction: learning from the culture of beavers, which manage to retain water within a territory, allowing it to infiltrate the groundwater.

European and national experts emphasised the urgent need for decisive action to strengthen water resilience in the context of climate change.
“It is essential that regions and local authorities be involved in European decisions on water management and climate adaptation,” said Ms Kata Tüttő, President of the European Committee of the Regions (CoR), present in Miercurea Ciuc.
“Water is a limited resource, and by 2030 consumption may exceed available resources by 40%. Europe is warming twice as fast as the global average. Rising temperatures bring two major challenges: drought and extreme weather events. In Romania, over 150,000 people are affected by floods each year. Across Europe, various instruments are used to protect water, including the EU Water Resilience Strategy coordinated by the European Commission Vice-President, Roxana Mânzatu,” added Ms Ramona Chiriac, Head of the European Commission Representation in Romania.
“We need to put water on everyone’s agenda — individually and institutionally,” highlighted Borboly Csaba, CoR Ambassador and European Climate Pact Ambassador.

The events, organised in the context of the European Week of Regions (a broad programme managed by the European Committee of the Regions), and hosted by REPER21 (national coordinator of the European Climate Pact), the Harghita County Council, and the Research and Development Institute for Hunting and Mountain Resources, brought together — besides European political leaders — central authorities, Climate Pact Ambassadors (Matei Lostun, Cristina Baltoi, Szilvia Bencze), researchers, experts, citizens and civil society representatives concerned with water management and the need to coordinate actions with their communities.

Participants attended a thematic presentation, a round table, a participatory workshop and a field visit. Scientific evidence of the water crisis was presented (a 32-cm drop in the Olt aquifers in the past 25 years due to river regulation; the loss of approx. 3–3.3 million hectares of spruce; a decrease in average snow levels at Bâlea Lake from 3–4 metres to 0.8 metres from one year to the next), as well as the impact already felt or expected for the future.
Changes or losses in biodiversity and crops, reduced snow cover and water retention challenges have already transformed water management from a primarily coastal issue into a key concern for mountain areas.

The most dynamic part of the day was the debate dedicated to identifying creative solutions to counter the climate impacts on water resources. Young people, aware that they will be the ones to feel water scarcity most acutely, are paying particular attention to the future of water resilience.
During the participatory workshop and the field visit, participants emphasised the need for an integrated approach based on science and collaboration at community, national and European levels.

One of the most impressive success stories was presented by Szilvia Bencze, European Climate Pact Ambassador, describing the involvement of Ciuc-area communities in co-managing territories with beavers to promote water retention!
These “engineers of nature”, with around 150–200 families in the Ciuc region, can help develop nature-based solutions that require low costs and minimally invasive interventions — provided that they benefit from an appropriate legislative framework.
Traditional water management practices can thus be revitalised, and local residents can be encouraged to build small-scale water retention systems inspired by beaver engineering.

The image accompanying this communiqué shows an example of a beaver-built dam.

Another conclusion of the participatory workshop was the need to rethink water and climate governance — both locally, through dialogue and “climate/water twinning” allowing communities to learn from each other, and regionally, through the creation of multi-stakeholder alliances capable of scaling local experiences to national policy, such as the Ciuc Basin Water Alliance.
Water committees can also become innovative tools for shared water management in territories, mediating potential conflicts, increasing transparency of consumption, enabling participatory decisions on water allocations among households, industry and agriculture, and strengthening accountability of local actors.

This series of events is part of the civic commitment promoted by the European Climate Pact — a framework for climate awareness and action for European citizens, supporting the transformation of the European Union into a modern, competitive and resource-efficient economy in which:

• net greenhouse gas emissions reach zero by 2050;
  • economic growth is decoupled from resource use;
  • no person and no place is left behind.