What will climate change and socio-economic pressures mean for water availability across Europe—and what can be done to adapt? STARS4Water has launched a suite of interactive Story Maps that transforms the project’s scientific results and model outputs into accessible visual stories for water managers, policymakers, stakeholders and the wider public. Co-created with river basin stakeholders, the Story Maps use maps, visualizations and concise narratives to make complex, scenario-based information easier to explore and understand.

The Story Maps take users across the STARS4Water River Basin Hubs, exploring different but interconnected water-management challenges. They show how climate change and socio-economic developments can affect low flows, groundwater, water demand, ecosystems, hydropower, navigation and competing water uses, while also examining possible management and adaptation responses.

Explore the individual stories:

• Danube – Drought water conditions under climate change: discover how drier conditions and glacier retreat could affect navigation, ecosystems, hydropower and other water uses, and how targeted management measures could strengthen resilience.
• Drammen – Balancing future water, energy and ecosystems: explore how changing runoff and seasonality could reshape hydropower production, ecological conditions and the trade-offs between different water-management objectives.
• Duero – Groundwater beneath your fields: see how climate and human pressures are affecting groundwater in this agriculturally important basin and how improved data and modelling can support more adaptive management.
• East Anglia – Drier future for wildlife, but action can help: examine the growing pressures on water for wetlands and rivers and the measures that could help protect environmental water requirements.
• Messara – Basin under water pressure: explore how groundwater over-abstraction, high irrigation demand and climate change are shaping water scarcity in Crete’s largest agricultural plain—and the alternative pathways that could improve its resilience.
• Rhine – Navigating water scarcity in a changing climate: explore how climate and socio-economic change could intensify summer water scarcity and trade-offs among domestic, industrial and agricultural water uses.
• Seine – The future of low-flow management: discover how climate change and different reservoir-management strategies could influence low flows and water availability along the Seine.
• Meuse – River Basin in a changing climate: explore how climate change and socio-economic developments may make low flows more frequent and severe, and how Nature-based Solutions, technical measures and water-demand management can contribute to more sustainable and balanced water availability across the transboundary basin.

Together, the Story Maps demonstrate how next-generation data services, modelling and stakeholder knowledge can be brought together to turn scientific evidence into accessible and actionable insights. By connecting future water-resource risks with the realities of individual river basins, they aim to support stakeholder dialogue, policy development, public awareness and adaptation planning. The Story Maps are intended to remain a resource beyond the project: the STARS4Water consortium has committed to keeping them accessible and functional for at least five years after the endof STARS4Water.

More information can be found in the following STARS4Water project Deliverable: Klösch, M. et al. (2026): Web-based story maps on water resources availability in river basin hubs. Deliverable 4.3 (D4.3). Horizon Europe project STARS4Water.