Press releases

Over one million barriers: new research calls for urgent action to reconnect Europe's rivers

29 June 2020 - The EU Horizon 2020 project Adaptive Management of Barriers in European Rivers (AMBER) launched the first-ever pan-European Atlas of in-stream barriers. AMBER researchers have estimated that there are over 1 million barriers, making Europe’s rivers the most fragmented in the world.

Fragmentation of rivers worse than existing databases show

23 April 2019 - A new peer-reviewed paper shows existing databases of river barriers like dams and weirs in Great Britain underestimate stream fragmentation by at least 68%. Only 1% of the rivers in England, Scotland and Wales are free of artificial barriers.

European experts gather to recover Lithuanian rivers

19 March 2019 - AMBER National Workshop in Lithuania aims to jump start river restoration initiatives

European fish and canoes bump into barriers almost every kilometer.

20 July 2018 - A new study reveals that the density of barriers in European rivers is much higher than indicated by available databases.

More than 1 million barrier block European rivers

4 July 2016 - New research project seeks to restore river connectivity