Europe’s Great Unblocking: Record Dam Removals Signal Shift in Ecological Infrastructure
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The Return of the Salmon
On the Hiitolanjoki River in southeastern Finland, the soundscape is shifting. For over a century, the river’s rhythm was dictated by three hydropower dams, turning flowing currents into stagnant reservoirs. Now, as those concrete barriers are dismantled, the water is quickening and cooling, returning to its natural state. The result was almost immediate: Atlantic salmon, long barred from their ancestral spawning grounds, have pushed upstream for the first time in generations.
This is not an isolated success story, but part of a sweeping infrastructure reversal across the continent. According to the latest annual report from Dam Removal Europe, a coalition of six restoration organizations, 2025 saw a record 603 dams and barriers removed across 21 countries. This marks an 11% increase over 2024 and a staggering six-fold increase since the coalition began tracking data in 2020.
Dismantling Obsolete Infrastructure
The scale of the problem is immense. The Adaptive Management of Barriers in European Rivers (AMBER) project estimates that roughly 1.2 million barriers—ranging from massive hydroelectric dams to small weirs, culverts, and sluices—fragment Europe’s waterways. While these structures were once the engines of the industrial revolution, powering mills and factories, thousands are now functionally obsolete.
For many of these aging assets, the cost of maintenance outweighs their utility. But for ecologists, the cost of keeping them is even higher. Pao Fernández-Garrido, senior grants manager for the European Open Rivers Programme, notes that dammed rivers essentially become solar collectors. By transforming a flowing channel into a still pond, water temperatures rise significantly, which can be lethal for sensitive cold-water species.
Beyond temperature, these reservoirs act as traps for organic matter. As this material decomposes in anaerobic conditions at the bottom of the reservoir, it releases methane—a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide—turning old energy infrastructure into active climate liabilities.
Climate Resilience and the ‘Sponge’ Effect
The push for river connectivity is increasingly framed not just as a win for biodiversity, but as a critical component of climate adaptation. The European Environment Agency points out that 90% of the continent’s natural disasters over the last decade have been water-related. Fragmented rivers and the loss of 80% of Europe’s wetlands over the last millennium have stripped the landscape of its natural ability to manage extremes.
By removing barriers, the EU is attempting to restore what ecologists call the ‘sponge effect.’ Natural, connected river systems and their associated floodplains absorb excess water during heavy rainfall and release it slowly during droughts, mitigating the severity of both floods and water shortages.
The Biodiversity Crisis
The urgency of these removals is underscored by a grim census of European freshwater life. A European Commission assessment recently revealed that more than 42% of the continent’s freshwater fish species are threatened, with nearly two-thirds at risk. Species like the European eel and Atlantic salmon are particularly vulnerable, as their life cycles depend on the ability to migrate between the ocean and upstream habitats.
While some hydropower operators have installed ‘fish passes’ or ladders, these technical fixes are often insufficient. Many are designed for the strongest swimmers, leaving weaker species stranded and effectively cutting off entire sections of the ecosystem from the rest of the river network.
The 2025 surge in removals brings Europe closer to its ambitious goal of restoring 25,000 kilometers of free-flowing rivers by 2030. With 3,740 kilometers reconnected this year alone, the project suggests that the era of the dam is being replaced by an era of restoration, where the most advanced piece of technology for river health is, quite simply, the absence of concrete.
