About this Research Topic
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Rivers rank among the most threatened ecosystems in the world, but also the most valuable to society. Conflict over water is not only one of the most widespread global stressors, but also the one most likely to impact humans and nature. People have dammed rivers for centuries to catch fish, divert water, transport goods, and generate power. Despite the continued worldwide increase in dam construction, many barriers are obsolete or abandoned. This opens opportunities for river restoration through dam removal, the re-establishment of environmental flows, and the reconnection of organisms with habitats, nutrients, and sediments.
This Research Topic will explore the tensions caused by the need to draw more water and generate more hydro-power from rivers, the impacts caused by dams and other barriers, and the way novel technologies and adaptive management can help reconnect people with rivers while maintaining services to society.
We welcome manuscripts that address the causes, extent, and impacts of river fragmentation, as well as the costs and benefits of restoring connectivity in running waters. We will consider manuscripts that report results from the field, modeling, social, and experimental studies, as well as methods, reviews, perspectives, and meta-analysis. Multidisciplinary contributions that bridge the gap between social and life sciences concerning the restoration of river connectivity are particularly welcome.
Topics include, but are not limited to:
• Costs and benefits of restoring river connectivity
• Metrics of river fragmentation
• Quantification of barrier impacts
• Sediment dynamics in fragmented rivers
• Adaptive barrier management
• Decision Support Tools for restoring connectivity
• Impacts of barriers on ecosystem services
• Ecohydrology and nature-based solutions
• Dam removal case studies
• Novel fish passage solutions
• Novel approaches for the restoration of connectivity
• Citizen science in barrier impact research
• Public attitudes to dams and reservoirs
• Advances in telemetry and fish passage research
• Dams and conflict resolution
• Barriers and environmental flows
This Research Topic is being sponsored by ERCE and the EC Horizon 2020 Projects AMBER & FIThydro. The sponsors play no part in the selection or acceptance of manuscripts. All submissions are evaluated objectively and unbiasedly by the Editors and independently from any specific policy or opinion of the sponsors.
Rivers rank among the most threatened ecosystems in the world, but also the most valuable to society. Conflict over water is not only one of the most widespread global stressors, but also the one most likely to impact humans and nature. People have dammed rivers for centuries to catch fish, divert water, transport goods, and generate power. Despite the continued worldwide increase in dam construction, many barriers are obsolete or abandoned. This opens opportunities for river restoration through dam removal, the re-establishment of environmental flows, and the reconnection of organisms with habitats, nutrients, and sediments.
This Research Topic will explore the tensions caused by the need to draw more water and generate more hydro-power from rivers, the impacts caused by dams and other barriers, and the way novel technologies and adaptive management can help reconnect people with rivers while maintaining services to society.
We welcome manuscripts that address the causes, extent, and impacts of river fragmentation, as well as the costs and benefits of restoring connectivity in running waters. We will consider manuscripts that report results from the field, modeling, social, and experimental studies, as well as methods, reviews, perspectives, and meta-analysis. Multidisciplinary contributions that bridge the gap between social and life sciences concerning the restoration of river connectivity are particularly welcome.
Topics include, but are not limited to:
• Costs and benefits of restoring river connectivity
• Metrics of river fragmentation
• Quantification of barrier impacts
• Sediment dynamics in fragmented rivers
• Adaptive barrier management
• Decision Support Tools for restoring connectivity
• Impacts of barriers on ecosystem services
• Ecohydrology and nature-based solutions
• Dam removal case studies
• Novel fish passage solutions
• Novel approaches for the restoration of connectivity
• Citizen science in barrier impact research
• Public attitudes to dams and reservoirs
• Advances in telemetry and fish passage research
• Dams and conflict resolution
• Barriers and environmental flows
This Research Topic is being sponsored by ERCE and the EC Horizon 2020 Projects AMBER & FIThydro. The sponsors play no part in the selection or acceptance of manuscripts. All submissions are evaluated objectively and unbiasedly by the Editors and independently from any specific policy or opinion of the sponsors.
Keywords: dam removal, adaptive management, nature-like solutions, connectivity, river restoration
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
