UNDP/GEF Prut River Basin Wetland Restoration — Rehabilitating the Camenca Watercourse, Moldova

Moldova's Ministry of Environment and UNDP, financed by the Global Environment Facility (project budget approximately US$900,000, GEF-7 project document dated November 2022), are implementing a five-year programme to conserve and restore high-value wetlands across roughly 20,803 hectares of the Lower Prut Biosphere Reserve, the Pădurea Domnească Scientific Reserve and their surrounding floodplain in southern Moldova.

The project's centrepiece is the hydrological rehabilitation of the Camenca river's old watercourse, which UNDP's own modelling projects will deliver an additional 8.3 million cubic metres of water annually to wetlands in the Prut's mid-section — a quantified engineering target rather than an aspirational figure. UNDP states this water is intended to sustain approximately 11,175 hectares of floodplain habitat even under a severe climate-driven water-scarcity scenario, and to improve water quality for around 14 downstream communities.

As the project was still in its early implementation stages at the time of reporting, no post-restoration biodiversity or water-quality outcome data has yet been published; the evidence available covers the hydrological modelling and committed restoration targets rather than measured ecological results.

Read the full analysis: https://moldova.un.org/en/199029-undp-and-gef-support-revitalization-prut-rivers-ecosystem