In the Sarine River, the residual flow downstream of the Lake Gruyère reservoir often only amounts to two or three cubic metres per second. This is not enough to ensure that what should in fact be a dynamic habitat, remains so. Instead of the gravel shifting occasionally and uprooting young plants along with it, the gravel and sand banks and the river bed are static and are suffering from an overgrowth of plants and algae. Moreover, further downstream, the river is heavily polluted due to hydropower plants releasing used water in surges. The revised Water Protection Act provides that situations such as this must be remediated. At the same time, the energy transition brings with it added pressure on hydropower. The “Sustainable Flood Plain Management and Hydropower” project is currently investigating how best to create ecological conditions that are as natural as possible, whilst still maintaining hydropower generation. The project, which is a joint undertaking by ZHAW, EPFL and Eawag, is part of the “Energy Turnaround” National Research Programme (NRP 70).