Nearly half of Europe's lakes are failing to meet basic ecological standards – and with tens of thousands of degraded waters across the continent, there will never be enough money, time or attention to restore them all at once. So which lakes do we begin with? Who decides? And once the science is done, what keeps a lake healthy for the decades that follow?

In this second episode, recorded at the FutureLakes midterm consortium meeting in Gdańsk, Poland, we travel to the restored Kartuzy lakes to explore the human questions at the heart of lake restoration: choosing, governing, and bringing people along. Project coordinator Laurence Carvalho (NIVA) makes the case for lakes as overlooked but vital ecosystems, and for a policy window now opening across Europe. Maeve McGovern (NIVA) introduces a new framework to help governments decide which lak ...