Klamath Basin Tribes and allies from the commercial fishing and conservation organizations stage a rally at the bi-annual meeting of the international hydropower industry- Hydrovision 2006. [Photo credit: Patrick McCulley]
Good news for rivers: dam removal works pretty well. A paper published yesterday in Science reports findings that rivers recover relatively quickly from negative consequences of dams once they are removed:
Dam removal and the resulting river ecosystem restoration is being studied by scientists from several universities and government agencies, including the USGS and U.S. Forest Service, as part of a national effort to document the effects of removing dams. Studies show that most river channels stabilize within months or years, not decades, particularly when dams are removed rapidly.
“In many cases, fish and other biological aspects of river ecosystems also respond quickly to dam removal,” said co-author of the study Jeff Duda, an ecologist with USGS. “When given the chance, salmon and other migratory fish will move upstream and utilize newly opened habitat.”
via www.usgs.gov
Also see:
Interesting project undertaken by American Rivers: an interactive map inventory showing dam removals between 1936 and 2014.
Article on the Klamath dam removal project: Oregon’s Klamath River Basin One Step Closer to Historic Dam Removal (April 2014)
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