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Open Rivers Programme aims to free rivers in Europe by removing obsolete and unused dams

  • The Open Rivers Programme, launched in Oct. 2021, aims to free rivers in Europe by removing obsolete and unused dams.
  • €42.5M have been allocated as grants to support the removal of dams.
  • The European Commission encourages member states to remove barriers to help 25,000 km of rivers flow freely by 2030.
    • A guide for identifying barriers was released and can be viewed here.
  • Dams in Spain, France, and the U.K. are anticipated to be removed in 2022.
  • Amber, a European research project, estimates that currently, 150,000 dams and weirs in Europe can be removed.
  • Another study estimates that 1.2 million instream barriers in Europe are the underlying cause resulting in an estimated 90% drop, between 1970 and 2016, in the number of migratory freshwater fish across the continent.

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