Create an inventory of barriers in Sarantaporos sub-basin, develop criteria for dam removal and build a solid case for the removal of five barriers
The Sarantaporos River is a main tributary of Aoos/Vjosa, a transboundary river shared between Greece and Albania, which has been characterised as the longest and the last free-flowing river in Europe. The Sarantaporos catchment, part of the wider Aoos river basin, is a riverine biodiversity hotspot, boasting extensive and unfragmented riparian forests and hosting important fish species (such as the European eel and the West Balkan trout), large carnivores (including the Eurasian otter, brown bear, grey wolf and Balkan chamois) and invertebrates. At the same time, the catchment area is one of the most remote areas of Greece and ranks among the poorest EU regions.
| Project status | Completed |
|---|---|
| Project type | Barrier identification and prioritisation |
| Country | Greece |
| River | Sarantaporos |
| Organisation | Mediterranean Institute for Nature and Anthropos (MedINA) |
| Website | MedINA |
It is estimated that the streams feeding the Sarantaporos River contain many small, in some cases obsolete, barriers, but very limited data exists regarding their actual number and state. At the same time, the area faces significant threats from planned Small Hydropower Plants (30 SHPs are under different licensing stages in the Sarantaporos sub-basin), which, if constructed, will cause irreversible fragmentation to this important transboundary ecological corridor. MapStream will provide comprehensive knowledge on the location, characteristics and status of barriers in the Sarantaporos sub-basin –producing the first detailed inventory of the entire hydrographic network at the catchment level in Greece– and pilot a methodology for pre-demolition case-building in a Greek context, both lacking and of great significance. The project will also launch a public dialogue about the negative impacts of obsolete barriers and advocate for their removal while raising awareness against the creation of SHPs in the area.
MapStream comes to fill an important gap in Greek water management policy and practice: the lack of comprehensive data on small barriers and the absence of an enabling framework for removing obsolete structures. To achieve its aims, MapStream will:
By the end of the project, conditions will be in place for removing five barriers, and project outputs will be shared with national, regional, and local authorities.
The Mediterranean Institute for Nature and Anthropos (MedINA) completed a series of pivotal activities supporting the future removal of obsolete river barriers in the Sarantaporos sub-basin, enhancing prospects for river connectivity, biodiversity, and flood resilience.
The MapStream project succeeded in its foundational activities, including extensive fieldwork in the Sarantaporos sub-basin and the establishment of a detailed GIS inventory. A team of three (3) field data collectors spent over fifty (50) days on the ground between June and September 2024, covering the entire length of the Sarantaporos River and its tributaries to identify human-made barriers in the river’s flow. The team hiked over 500 kilometers through challenging terrain and drove more than 550 kilometers along asphalt and dirt roads. They successfully mapped 241 barriers across 452 kilometers of streams, surpassing the original threshold of covering 85% of the network to achieve full coverage of the Sarantaporos hydrographic network.
A multidisciplinary team consisted of environmental experts, hydrologists, and GIS experts enabled the incorporation of the collected data into the project’s cornerstone deliverable: an online GIS inventory of barriers across the 452 km river network, which was also published as an interactive Story Map, providing visual and technical insights accessible to a broad audience, including local communities and decision-makers.
To assess the fragmentation of the Sarantaporos River network, all structures located within a 50-meter radius of the river courses and functioning as barriers were taken into account. Bridges without associated obstructions, as well as collapsed structures no longer significantly impeding river flow, were excluded from the analysis. In total, 91 barriers were identified as obstructing the free flow of the Sarantaporos River.
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