Rivers and their ecosystems can be a key part of a region’s physical environment, and clean, healthy rivers are often a major asset. They can boost tourism, provide the local population with access to leisure facilities and help raise the profile of a region, which, in turn, can attract new businesses to the area. However, river regions need to find ways to balance the ecological, aesthetical, social and economic challenges often presented by local factors such as high population density and the decline of traditional industries. The main aim of the operation is to increase awareness across Europe of these river problems in order to encourage both local inhabitants and institutions to become more involved in river management. By cooperating with other regions, the operation intends to influence the development of effective and sustainable river management policies, as well as the increased involvement of people in river issues. Achievements: Achievements so far Throughout the project, the COR partnership has continued to work on a range of projects; activities included pilot schemes, interregional visits and working groups. Partners have attended 66 interregional events, including 9 ISG's, 30 Working Group Meetings, 22 exchange visits and 5 International Conferences. Partners also attended 8 National Workshops. Transnational events to date have involved 773 participants, with a high level of partner attendance. In this period, Torfaen held an ISG , attended by all partners, who reached agreement on project closure and the opening and hosting of the Internet Portal, and Keep Wales Tidy hosted the final conference in Cardiff. The results of the project to date were disseminated and presentations made by all partners to share the lessons learned. Numerous exchanges and transnational information-sharing meetings have been effectively translated into national projects and programmes. The advantage of a wide knowledge base of technique and best practice has continued to add value for partner organisations and regions and has proved useful in providing fully transferable techniques as demonstrated during the partner exchanges and described in the best practice guides. As the project developed, a direct relationship between Local, National and EU policies on the topics of environmental education, fly-tipping, social inclusion, anti-social behaviour, volunteers, fishery laws, waste management and the water management and environmental agendas has become evident. The Project continuously enjoyed the full support of the partnership, with excellent attendance at the ISGs and other COR! events. In addition, the partnership has achieved substantial levels of publicity through the production of leaflets, the COR! website and project articles appearing in both academic and commercial publications. All partners have had an active role throughout the project and have focused on various different areas in which their organisations specialise, meaning that all the partners were able to gain valuable information and experience from transnational working. Additional publicity was created by placing publications on relevant websites. As the project came to a close, the partners co-operated to draw together the various elements of the project, and have undertaken exchanges to visit the pilot projects previously completed. The final exchange visit, to community engagement and environmental improvement projects in the KWT catchment, was extremely informative. The COR! project has been productive and has fostered a strong sense of co-operation between partners, who hope to maintain a high level of communication via the portal in order to gain information and insight into community involvement techniques and pilot schemes from all the partner regions.