“It’s hard to stop a movement with so many benefits.”

Dams, weirs and generally any obstruction that blocks the course of a river are the work of man, and therefore, as soon as they were built, they can be thrown away. This is the idea behind the movement that is growing in Europe with the aim of eliminating river blockages even though they are obsolete and therefore pose a threat to biodiversity, water availability and even people’s safety. .

In 2023 alone, 487 dam demolitions were recorded in 15 European countries, according to a report published this Monday by the Dam Removal Collective, made up of seven conservation organizations. This represents a jump of 50% compared to the previous year, but, above all, 382% if we take into account those that were thrown in 2020, the year that this group uses as a reference to analyze growth. Takes in. Its project director, biologist Rubén Rocha, explains that “they started being dumped long ago, in 2015, but there is no reliable data since that year.”

To obtain data, the group requests information directly from central governments, city councils, water agencies, non-governmental organizations, and researchers. Most countries lack centralized data, which is why Dam Removal Europe estimates that the number of dumped dams is higher than recorded in its study.

It is important to note that the majority of dams demolished in Europe, especially in France (156) and Spain (95) – the two countries where the most were demolished in 2023 – are dams less than two meters high and they are already are not operational, but they are relevant to recovering the health of dozens of streams and their biodiversity. “Dams and other barriers do not solve the problem of water availability. Adding water to boxes (reservoirs) has the opposite effect, as it shows that water is available, thereby increasing its use and reducing availability,” as the biologist explains.

There are political parties that talk about how demolishing dams increases drought, this is a complete lie, it is a narrative that cannot be sustained.

Dam Removal Europe highlights that the important thing about this movement, which more and more countries are joining, is that its benefits have already been well demonstrated and measured: they reduce fish migration. support, reduce the risk to people due to falling buildings, prevent floods By allowing rivers to flow freely, they improve biodiversity because they allow the movement of nutrients, water Slow down the rise in temperature and also get better quality water. Rocha’s analysis is, “I know there are political parties that talk about how tearing down dams will increase drought, that’s a complete lie, that’s a story that doesn’t hold up.”

fraud of drought

That speech and its hoax was spread by the Vox party in Spain to accuse the government of Pedro Sánchez of depleting water reserves while Spain struggled with water shortages and drought. The truth is that eliminating these “essentially obsolete” barriers – in any case more barriers than dams – is an obligation that derives from the EU Strategy on Biodiversity with a view to complying with the Water Framework Directive, That means follow the law.

In fact, this hoax was a continuation of messages that both Vox and PP had issued at the height of the drought last year, in which they said that the arrival of water at the mouths of rivers and its entry into the sea was “doomed”. “Of resources. The president of the Andalusian government, Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla, among others, contributed that speech when he complained that water was being released into the reservoir “because there is nowhere to store it.” In Congress. Vaux’s deputy, José María Figueredo, even said in the chamber about the mouth of the Tagus or Ebro, “A lot of water is wasted in Spain every year. “Cubic hectometers that are dumped into the ocean for no reason.”

For this Dam Removal Europe report, the organization has attempted for the first time to map the risks that obsolete dams pose to people’s safety. Thus, it counts 82 incidents in 16 countries that resulted in 129 deaths since 2000.

There are 1.2 million barriers blocking rivers in Europe, according to the only major exercise undertaken by the EU to count them, the AMBER project, which lasted four years and was published in 2020. And of these dams, more than 150,000 are no longer in use, according to Dam Removal Europe calculations. The organization struggles to expel the same people. For Rubén Rocha, “It is no longer a fight only of conservation organizations, but also of several governments and the EU, it is very difficult to stop a movement that shows and measures so many benefits.”