This pan-European survey investigates the status and potential of longitudinal river continuity restoration within Europe. Recent studies and inventories indicate that the degree of river fragmentation by artificial barriers is remarkably high in many regions and countries of greater Europe.
The EU Biodiversity Strategy sets a goal of restoring 25,000 kilometres of rivers to be free-flowing rivers by 2030. This survey provides a useful starting point to advance barrier removal and river restoration by understanding which countries have:
- national databases for barriers
- priority lists for barrier removals, and in which the total number of barriers is known
River Continuity Survey Report