A Balkan dam boom imperils Europe’s wildest rivers

elwha-dam-sediment
Sediment trapped, Elwha river. Photograph: © SAF — Coastal Care

Excerpts;

The Balkan Peninsula, one of Europe’s most undeveloped regions, is facing a wave of thousands of hydroelectric projects that would block pristine, free-flowing rivers and cause major environmental damage. Local residents and conservationists are fighting back…

Read Full Article; Yale E360 (05-08-2018)

Dam projects on world’s largest rivers threaten ecosystems, rural livelihoods; Science Daily (01-08-2016)

Large Dams Just Aren’t Worth the Cost, The New York Times (10-25-2014)

Small Dams On Chinese River Harm Environment More Than Expected, study finds, NSF (05-30-2013)

The Wrong Climate for Damming Rivers, A Video from Todd Southgate (05-26-2016)
Though large hydropower projects are often presented as a “clean and green” source of energy, nothing could be further from the truth…

Mega Dams Remain Controversial Source of Energy; IPS News (06-09-2016)

Undamming Rivers: A Chance For New Clean Energy Source; Yale E360 (08-07-2015)
Hydroelectric power is often touted as clean energy, but this claim is true only in the narrow sense of not causing air pollution. In many places, such as the U.S. East Coast, hydroelectric dams have damaged the ecological integrity of nearly every major river…

New Global Warming Culprit: Dams (08-08-2012)

Dams – Cutting Off Beach Sand; By Gary Griggs (12-19-2014)

Why the World’s Rivers Are Losing Sediment and Why It Matters; Yale E360 (06-20-2017)

Sediment Trapped Behind Dams Makes Them ‘Hot Spots’ for Greenhouse Gas Emissions, (08-01-2013)
The large reservoirs of water behind the world’s 50,000 large dams are a known source of methane. Methane has a warming effect 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. That knowledge led to questions about hydroelectric power’s image as a green and nonpolluting energy source…

Taking Down Dams and Letting the Fish Flow, The New York Times (10-24-2016)
Nationwide, dam removals are gaining traction. Four dams are slated for removal from the Klamath River alone in California and Oregon by 2020. And the lessons are the same everywhere: Unplug the rivers, and the fish will return…

DamNation; a Documentary That’s Testing the Waters of Corporate Social Responsibility; Produced by Stoecker Ecological and Felt Soul Media” and presented by Patagonia.

Movement to Take Down Thousands of Dams Goes Mainstream, National Geographic (01-29-2015)

Elwha, The Grand Experiment (11-12-2012)

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