EU Horizon 2020 AMBER (Adaptive Management of Barriers in European Rivers) project - prof. Castelletti
July 6th, 2020
Abstract
The EU Horizon 2020 AMBER (Adaptive Management of Barriers in European Rivers) project created the first pan-European atlas on river barriers. Politecnico di Milano researchers involved with the AMBER project estimated that there were more than one million barriers, making Europe's rivers the most fragmented worldwide.
The Environmental Intelligence Lab (https://www.ei.deib.polimi.it/) research group, led by Professor Andrea Castelletti of the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering of Politecnico di Milano, participated in the construction of the Barrier Atlas and its European scale adoption. The group worked with the European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC). DEIB researchers developed models to monitor sediment connectivity at the basin scale and used drones to collect model calibration data.
The Pan-European Atlas of In-Stream Barriers provides the most comprehensive overview of river fragmentation in Europe. It contains information on 630,000 barriers including not only large dams, but also hundreds of thousands of smaller weirs, ramps, fords and culverts. However, after walking 2,700 km of streams in 28 countries, AMBER researchers have found that more than one third of barriers are unrecorded, bringing the total to well over 1 million. This scale of river fragmentation is alarming and makes Europe the most fragmented river landscape in the world, with hardly any unfragmented, free-flowing rivers left.
The atlas data can be used to estimate river fragmentation at various spatial scales. The priority should be to protect the least fragmented rivers and to act on those barriers that cause most of the damage.
The Environmental Intelligence Lab (https://www.ei.deib.polimi.it/) research group, led by Professor Andrea Castelletti of the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering of Politecnico di Milano, participated in the construction of the Barrier Atlas and its European scale adoption. The group worked with the European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC). DEIB researchers developed models to monitor sediment connectivity at the basin scale and used drones to collect model calibration data.
The Pan-European Atlas of In-Stream Barriers provides the most comprehensive overview of river fragmentation in Europe. It contains information on 630,000 barriers including not only large dams, but also hundreds of thousands of smaller weirs, ramps, fords and culverts. However, after walking 2,700 km of streams in 28 countries, AMBER researchers have found that more than one third of barriers are unrecorded, bringing the total to well over 1 million. This scale of river fragmentation is alarming and makes Europe the most fragmented river landscape in the world, with hardly any unfragmented, free-flowing rivers left.
The atlas data can be used to estimate river fragmentation at various spatial scales. The priority should be to protect the least fragmented rivers and to act on those barriers that cause most of the damage.
