an inspiring project that captures the essence of current EU water protection legislation into one single public act: at one date, at one time, people will jump into rivers all over Europe. In a nutshell,BIG JUMP is a European river swimming day, where people reclaim their environment and demonstrate their wish to have clean and living rivers again. The Water Framework Directive (WFD; EU's main law for water protection) is the EU's legislative tool to achieve good status for all rivers and lakes in Europe. But a legislative tool alone is not enough to reach this goal. It is essential to gain people's support for it. Without a broad public support all over Europe, the WFD might never work