Record number of dams dismantled in Europe in effort to help wildlife thrive

A few miles downstream from a lava field in western Iceland, the gargle of free-flowing water is unbroken for the first time in decades after hydraulic peckers chipped away at a dilapidated dam that once powered a farm. The structure, on the River Melsá, continued to block fish migration long after falling into disrepair.

“It wasn’t providing any electricity; the old power house had sheep living in it,” said Hamish Moir, a river engineer from CBEC, a Scottish firm that provided technical support for the demolition in December. To see the river restored to its natural state, he said, “was really rewarding”.

The dam was the first that Iceland has officially removed from its rivers, according to new analysis, but across Europe a record-breaking 602 barriers were removed last year. A report from Dam Removal Europe found the number of dismantled dams, weirs, culverts and sluices grew by 11% from the year before, letting more waterways resume their natural course. It is part of a global trend to restore rivers to help wildlife thrive.

The 2,324 miles (3,740km) of rivers that were reconnected through barrier removals in 2025 brings the EU a step closer to its goal of restoring 15,500 miles to their natural state by 2030.

“For centuries, Europe treated rivers as engines for economic growth – damming them for mills and hydropower, straightening them for navigation, and burying them beneath cities,” said Chris Baker, director of the European branch of Wetlands International. “We built our prosperity by fragmenting our rivers, but the ecological price has been enormous.”

River barrier removals have increased sixfold from the first official count in 2020, according to the report. It found that Iceland and North Macedonia took down barriers for the first time in 2025. Sweden led the way with 173 barrier removals, followed by Finland with 143 and Spain with 109. The UK has removed 35 barriers.

The analysis from Dam Removal Europe, a coalition of environmental groups pushing to make rivers and streams free-flowing once more, found that more than three-quarters of the barriers removed in 2025 were less than 2 metres tall. Such structures, many of which no longer serve their original purpose, are relatively cheap and easy to remove.

The damming of rivers disrupts ecosystems, hinders the transport of sediments, and is thought to have contributed to a 75% decline in the continent’s freshwater migratory fish population since 1970. Rivers reconnected last year include the Kriva and Pčinja rivers in North Macedonia, a first for the small Balkan nation, while a 6m-high obsolete dam on the Vinstra River in Norway was dynamited.