Open Rivers Programme: Upper Tisza catchment dams removal and river fragments restoration for high nature value areas (Ukraine)

Open Rivers Programme 

The European Open Rivers Programme – a grant-giving organisation dedicated to restoring rivers.

05.2024 – 04.2025

Carpathian Biosphere Reserve (CBR)

The dams have been considered as substantial economic benefits to society, including irrigation, navigation, flood control, domestic and industrial water supply, hydropower, and recreation for many areas for the last few centuries. But these benefits often come at a price, including environmental and recreational impacts and dam maintenance and repair costs. Furthermore, climate and biodiversity considerations have been the most significant reasons for campaigning for dam removal in many countries. The obvious economic benefits of dam removal include eliminating flood hazards, improving boating and fishing, and supporting additional amenities, such as riverside walking trails. Removing all these dams will contribute to riverfront revitalisation, increase income to local fishing downstream, and decrease water quality improvement management costs. 

The project’s goal is to remove the Upper Tisza catchment dam and restore river fragments for high-nature-value areas of the Ukraine Carpathian Mts. The proposed three dams for removal are located on the Bilyi, Kvasnyi, and Bohdan mountain rivers, tributaries of the Tisza River within the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve (CBR) territory, which includes the UNESCO Heritage Virgin Beech forests clusters.

Our identified three dams do not even provide any of these benefits. They played an essential role for a maximum of 80 years ago in transporting wood with water downstream. Since it was not used anymore, it lost any functional need. Furthermore, it eroded neighbouring habitats and destroyed roads and bridges, stimulating the building of new protection dams. Protecting road safety is essential as dams can broadly support flash floods and destroy infrastructure. The obvious economic benefits of dam removal include eliminating flood hazards and supporting several additional amenities. Comparing the long- and short-term costs is critical to determine these dam removals’ economic costs and benefits.

The detailed project tasks are (1) Development of Preliminary Design for dam removal, which includes collecting of all available data (including archives), develop preliminary design plans for removal of dam structures, sediment management and riparian habitats restoration; (2) Discussion of the Preliminary Design of the dam removal during the CBR Scientific-Research Council meeting and Development of the Final version; presentation of the Preliminary Design of the dams removal and habitats restoration; development of Final Design of the Dam removal and habitats restoration (sediment management, infrastructure protection, channel restoration, and other issues identified during the preliminary design phase); (3) Field Dam Removal and Restoration of riparian zone, which consists of hire contractor by procurement and remove dam structure; hire contractor by procurement and arrange the restoration measures; organise volunteers training on restoration; (4) Communication (presenting work to the public) on dam removal, which includes organising the press tour for journalists and ecologists for removed dams; preparation of a short video film on the removal of the dam; preparation of project results on social networks (Facebook, webpage, etc.); development of a Toolkit on dam removal with guidelines (in Ukrainian); (5) Post-project monitoring, which consists of an evaluation of the dam removal and restoration measures.

(1) improved ecological connectivity of the rivers and biodiversity (restored migration of 8-9 listed IUCN fishes and round mouths upstream of upper Tisza catchment, increased diversity;

(2) restored riparian river fragments; improved the naturalness of waterways in the Upper Tisza catchment;

(3) additional 140 km of free-floating river fragments;

(4) higher stability of riparian habitats to slow the flash floods and decrease the soil erosion in riparian zones will help to maintain safety downstream;

(5) improved road and bridge infrastructures and green tourism development;

(6) increased conservation value for the whole Ukrainian Upper Tisza catchment (no dams, all free-floating rivers!);

(7) improved public awareness on dam removal and nature restoration.