Research projects

With the achievement of wastewater-free status in December 2021, the Emschergenossenschaft reached a milestone in the Emscher Conversion, which began in 1992. What started as a primarily water-management-oriented undertaking, shaped by engineering and operational considerations, has evolved over the course of this intergenerational project into a proactive, multifunctional and interdisciplinary regional development strategy. In addition to water quality, flood protection and the elimination of odour nuisance, the focus increasingly shifted towards recreational and leisure quality, the landscape and townscape, sustainable neighbourhood development, art and culture, and adaptation to climate change. The conversion is thus intended to create added value that goes beyond the original objectives, improves quality of life and contributes to structural change in the Ruhr area.

An analysis of the added value achieved to date rates both the objectives and the degree to which they have been met positively, but identifies a particular need for action in the fields of climate change adaptation, improved flood safety and the upgrading of the Emscher region. While the conversion of the watercourse creates the precondition for positive development in the northern Ruhr area, measurable increases in value are so far evident only in a few locations. Visible structural effects can be expected primarily where amenities are developed in a targeted and coordinated manner at suitable sites.

For the coming years, a new conversion strategy is therefore required—one that continues the successful path taken while, in close coordination with municipalities, the state government and the local population, setting new impulses for a substantial improvement in quality of life in the Emscher area. This study contributes to that goal: using a suitability analysis, it identifies priority areas for concentrated development impulses and, drawing on international good-practice examples, explores how neighbourhoods can be revitalised through river restoration and blue infrastructure.