Enhancing Climate Resilience Through Dam and Barrier Removal

Hydroclimate change is stressing dams and their management, altering the benefits, costs, and risks of built water infrastructure for people and the environment. Removing obsolete dams and barriers may hold promise as a nature‐based solution to adapt to climate change‐related events, including more severe droughts and floods. While most dam removal studies describe the impacts of dams on people and the environment, few studies directly connect removal with climate change, resilience, or adaptation. To explore the potential link between dam removal and climate resilience, we reviewed 50 studies and reports, including peer‐reviewed and gray literature. We interpret climate resilience broadly, encompassing environmental, economic, engineering, social, and cultural criteria. Removing dams and barriers enhances climate resilience by reconnecting rivers, enhancing fisheries, cooling stream temperatures, and providing access to stream temperature refuges, and reducing risk where changing hydrology exceeds dam design standards. We highlight several cases where dams and barriers have already been removed to improve climate resilience and identify over 70 unique metrics of climate resilience. There is no universal approach for measuring resilience, as river systems and objectives vary. Many dams are instrumental for flood risk reduction, water supply reliability, hydropower generation, water temperature management, novel ecosystems, and blocking dispersal of invasive species. Research linking dam removal to climate resilience is still emerging and is essential for prioritizing the removal of unsafe, underperforming, and obsolete dams, thereby directing funding for maintaining and rehabilitating valuable water infrastructure to withstand extreme climate events. This article is categorized under: Science of Water > Water and Environmental Change Engineering Water > Sustainable Engineering of Water