WHY IS EUROPE BREAKING DAMS?
Extinct fishes return to rivers , plant flourish.
Europe has removed at least 239 river barriers across 17 countries in 2021.
This is a 137% increase from the previous year.
A campaign is going on in Europe for uninterrupted flow of rivers. Dams are being demolished since 2016. In 2022 alone, 325 dams built on European rivers were broken, which is 36% more than 2021. The special thing is that the aquatic life of the rivers where dams were broken has started changing. Fishes like Solomon started appearing in the Hiitolanjoki river in Finland, which had become extinct here a year ago. Paulina Louhi, an ecologist at the Natural Resources Institute of Finland, says – The return of the fish is a sign that the river ecosystem is healing itself. Local plants have started growing again. In fact, from 1911 to 1925, 3 big dams were built on the river and the flow of the river stopped. As a result, the journey of fish like Solomon and Brown Tout traveling from the Russian lake to Finland came to an end and gradually they too.
About 1.50 lakh dams in Europe are not working, but the maintenance cost is very high. That's why they are being demolished. The second reason is natural. To reduce environmental change, efforts are being made to allow rivers to remain in their natural environment. America is also removing dams, greenery is increasing - America started removing dams from its rivers before Europe.
The average age of 92,000 dams in America is 62 years. America has broken more than 2000 dams so far. The environment of the rivers whose dams were broken started changing rapidly and the river started returning to its old form. The surrounding greenery also increased.
Source : Dainik bhaskar
