ClientEarth Communications
1st October 2026
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Europe’s rivers look very different from when much of the infrastructure shaping them was built. We are asking whether the decisions governing that infrastructure have kept pace.
This summer, low water levels on the Danube and Rhine disrupted freight, industry, and energy production across Europe. Rivers suddenly became difficult to ignore – as landscapes and habitats, but also as systems that our economies and communities depend on.
Many of the structures shaping those rivers have been there for decades. Large dams built in the 1960s and 1970s are still operating. Smaller barriers remain scattered along waterways, including structures whose original purpose has disappeared altogether.
And while rivers change, the decisions governing that infrastructure do not always change with them.
A dam built in the mid-1970s is now around 50 years old. The climate that such a structure was built for no longer exists.
Today, Europe faces changing rainfall patterns, more severe drought conditions and changing river flows. Scientific knowledge has advanced, environmental standards have changed, and the purpose a structure was built to serve may look very different. Over the same period, sediment can build up behind a dam, reducing reservoir capacity.
Yet in some cases, a dam can continue operating for another 20 or 30 years without an environmental impact assessment reflecting those conditions.
That is the problem examined in ClientEarth’s report Past the Expiration Date, which looks at dam lifetime extensions and EU environmental law through case studies in Poland, Italy, Bulgaria, and Romania.
Ageing does not automatically mean obsolete, but still standing doesn't mean still serving its original purpose.Maja Starosta, Law and Policy Advisor at ClientEarth and author of the report,
Not every barrier is a huge concrete dam. Europe’s rivers are fragmented by an estimated 1.2 million artificial barriers. Many are small. More than 100,000 are estimated to be abandoned or obsolete.
They may no longer be useful, but they are still there – interrupting the movement of water and sediment and preventing migratory fish from reaching feeding and spawning grounds. Removing one might sound straightforward, but in practice, it can raise a surprising set of questions.
Does anyone know the barrier exists? Who owns it? Who is allowed to remove it? Who pays? If there are no good answers, then the barrier stays.
That is where ClientEarth’s second report, Freeing Europe’s Rivers, begins. Looking at Poland, Finland and France, it explores the less visible side of river restoration: the inventories, laws, responsibilities, procedures, and funding that determine whether removal actually happens.
Healthy rivers are part of our safety net. We depend on river systems for water, food, and energy. They also help landscapes cope with too much or too little water.Maria Włoskowicz, Legal Expert at ClientEarth and the author of Freeing Europe’s Rivers,
Under the EU Nature Restoration Regulation, Member States must contribute to restoring at least 25,000 kilometres of rivers to a free-flowing state by 2030. Their draft national restoration plans were due on 1 September 2026.
However, a target alone won't remove a barrier. Countries need to know what is in their rivers: which structures still serve a justified purpose, which need to be reassessed or modified, and which have become obsolete. They also need legal and administrative systems capable of turning those decisions into action.
The same principle applies to ageing dams. Europe’s rivers are not the rivers of the 1970s. The climate, the science, the needs – they're all different.
The decisions shaping our rivers need to catch up.
