Europe removed 602 river barriers including dams, weirs, culverts and sluices in 2025, reconnecting 2,324 miles (3,740 km) of rivers, according to Dam Removal Europe. The total represented an 11% increase from the previous year and a sixfold rise since the first official count in 2020.

Sweden led the continent with 173 barriers removed, followed by Finland with 143, Spain with 109, and the United Kingdom with 35. More than 75% of the barriers taken down across Europe in 2025 were less than 2 metres tall, and many no longer served their original purpose, making them relatively cheap and easy to remove.

Iceland and North Macedonia removed barriers from their rivers for the first time. In December, a dilapidated dam on the River Melsá in western Iceland, which had once powered a farm, was demolished in the country's first dam removal. Rivers reconnected in North Macedonia included the Kriva and Pčinja.

Other projects in 2025 included the removal of four small dams in tributaries to the Vindel River by Rewilding Sweden, and the dynamiting of an obsolete 6-metre-high dam on the Vinstra River in Norway. River engineer Hamish Moir said of one removal: "It wasn't providing any electricity; the old power house had sheep living in it." He added: "To see the river restored to its natural state was really rewarding."

More than one million barriers fragment waterways in Europe, with tens of thousands thought to be obsolete. Damming rivers has contributed to a 75% decline in Europe's freshwater migratory fish population since 1970. The European Union's nature restoration law, which entered into force in 2024, calls for the removal of obsolete barriers so rivers and lakes can be reconnected, and Europe aims to restore 15,500 miles of rivers 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."

Ellen Dolan, a biologist at Queen's University Belfast and lead author of a study, addressed the longer-term outlook for restored rivers. "While initial improvements in connectivity can be rapid, stressors such as invasive species can eventually accumulate and erode longer-term conservation value," she said. "With careful preparation, monitoring and long-term management, these risks can be minimised."

Outside Europe, 100 dams were dismantled in the United States in 2025, according to data from American Rivers. Streams in the U.S. are fragmented by more than 550,000 dams and 300,000 road-related barriers, and an estimated 70% of U.S. dams have outlived their average design life. Conservation efforts in China have resulted in the removal of hundreds of dams on the Yangtze River in recent years.