Efforts to restore urban and peri-urban lakes are on the rise globally, yet many fail to achieve a healthy ecological status. Despite growing investments in restoration, many projects suffer from fragmented planning, inconsistent technical standards, limited data integration, and weak linkage between scientific knowledge and on-ground decision-making. Restoration efforts are often reactive, consultant-driven, or based on isolated parameters rather than holistic system understanding.

There is a lack of structured, accessible platforms that integrate ecological science, engineering options, financial considerations, and stakeholder needs into a coherent decision-making framework. Different user groups, citizens, engineers, contractors, and planners operate with varying levels of data availability and technical capacity, leading to inconsistent and non-transparent choices. This initiative seeks to bridge the gap between research, policy, and implementation by institutionalising a standardised, science-based approach to lake restoration planning and evaluation.

Water and society programme – The programme aims to work towards achieving a water-secure future for society through interdisciplinary knowledge generation and dissemination, policy engagement, capacity building, and partnerships for equitable and sustainable water management and democratic water governance. To advance the knowledge, we adopt an approach of integrated water resources management and acknowledge an intricate interplay between natural and human systems within complex waterscapes. Our strategy integrates diverse knowledge streams, particularly hydrology encompassing surface water-groundwater interactions, political ecology, and science, technology, and society to analyse and address water-related issues by leveraging our expertise in geospatial tools and nature-based solutions.