The database contains metadata of biological monitoring projects of rivers and their floodplains in Germany and gives a first overview about nationwide monitoring activities. More detailed information about single projects are given in the data entries UFO_11, UFO_12 and UFO_17 to UFO_24 of the Freshwater Metadatabase (http://data.freshwaterbiodiversity.eu/metadb). Metadata were collected in the national project 'Development of biodiversity in floodplains' funded by the Federal Agency of Conservation (BfN). Four institutions were involved: Departement of Aquatic Ecology, University of Duisburg-Essen; Institute of Geography and Geoecology, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology; Floodplain Institute Neuburg, University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt; Department of Conservation Biology, Helmholtz Centre for Biological Research-UFZ. More information on this dataset can be found in the Freshwater Metadatabase - UFO_25 (http://www.freshwatermetadata.eu/metadb/bf_mdb_view.php?entryID=UFO_25).