On this Earth Day, we’re proud to launch the new Guideline on How to Remove River Barriers in Croatia.
This guideline is a practical tool for practitioners, organisations, public authorities, and individuals who wish to contribute to the removal of obsolete river barriers in Croatia in order to restore river connectivity. Rather than focusing on detailed engineering or technical removal methods, this guide adopts a holistic, step-by-step perspective on the barrier removal journey. It outlines the key phases, decision points, and enabling conditions required to successfully plan, develop, and implement a barrier removal project, from the first idea through to monitoring, communication, and scaling up.
This is the first of a four-part guideline series we are developing as part of the Dam Removal Expansion to Southeastern Europe (DRE SEE) project, funded by the Open Rivers Programme. This first guideline focused on Croatia context was developed with support from WWF Adria, who have already led the first barrier removals in Croatia at Plitvice Lakes National Park, demonstrating what’s possible when we work together to restore free-flowing rivers.
