This association includes aquatic vegetation dominated by Nymphaea alba, which is often accompanied by Nuphar lutea. It is confined to mesotrophic to eutrophic oxbows and alluvial pools with limited fluctuations of the water table, which are usually 50–100 cm deep. It does not occur in flowing water. In the terrestrialization successional series it replaces vegetation of submerged macrophytes and significantly contributes to water body filling by its high biomass production. In the Czech Republic it used to be distributed in the floodplains of lowland rivers, but it significantly declined due to river regulations in the last decades.