Dam Removal Course
Take part in dam removal course prepared by lead experts in the field Laura Wildman and Lisa Hollingsworth-Segedy
This is a Dam Removal course led by top experts from the field and is targeted to river restoration practitioners near the beginning of their dam removal careers who are looking to remove a dam or two (or more) and are seeking advice and tools with which they could better solve the challenges they might face on the future projects. This two-day course will focus on social and technical aspects of dam removal, including dam removal planning, removal design, and construction techniques, and include an interactive public meeting exercise and interactive case examples where course participants will learn to identify potential projects and key issues.
The course will take place in Groningen, The Netherlands on April 13 and 14, 2024.
Goal of the course and why you should take it
What better time to learn about the logistics of removing a dam than at a conference celebrating free-flowing rivers! By now you have all heard the buzz; People around the globe are removing dams and barriers from rivers and restoring entire ecosystems. Momentum is building! Now is your time to join in and make a difference.
Maybe you have passed a dam in your Town and thought “That dam is just rotting in place, no one is using it anymore”, or maybe you are part of an organization that is looking to maximize the ecological restoration within your region, or you own a dam and find the costs of maintenance and liability outweigh the benefits, or perhaps you just don’t want to hand the dam costs, both economically and environmentally, down to the next generation. Well then this is the course for you!
Removing dams can be enormously gratifying and will make a difference to communities and their rivers for many generations to come, but it is often not a simple process. There are lessons that we have learned over the last 3 decades that can help you navigate your course, from identifying potential dam removal sites to finding funding to addressing the many socioeconomic, regulatory, and technical issues.
The instructors of this course have been removing dams since the mid-1990s, have successfully removed hundreds of dams in the United States, and have been involved in a wide variety of global dam removal efforts. Our approach to this two-day course is to open a dialogue with the participants, determine where they are on their journey to restore rivers, and share with them the many things we have learned along our respective journeys. To do this we have developed this highly interactive short, where participants will get a chance to take part in a “contentious” mock public meeting as well as break off into smaller groups to review data and maps to identify critical issues for an actual dam removal site. The instructors will guide you through the process, each providing their own specialized perspective in planning, community engagement, riverine ecology, socioeconomics, and engineering.
Highlights
- Small group of 30 participants
- Dynamic Approach: This interactive workshop will rely heavily on case studies, storytelling and story listening, small group exercises, and role play. Workshop leaders will provide field-tested tools that attendees can apply to their projects.
- Tailor made course to the meet needs of participants (includes pre-course preparatory work)
Learning points
- How do we influence people to accept the removal of their dam?
- What are strategies I can use to face opposition from people who are not scientists and don’t trust science?
- How much of my project budget and timeframe should I devote to public engagement?
- How do we balance natural history and cultural history concerns?
- How do we identify good candidate sites for dam removal?
- How do you start up a dam removal project? What are the steps?
- What challenges have you run into and how have you overcome them?
- How is a dam removed and how do you manage the potential impacts?
Meet your course leaders
Say hello to your course leaders, each a master in their field.
Laura Wildman is a professional fisheries and water resource engineer specializing in the restoration of rivers through the re-establishment of natural functions and aquatic connectivity. She is considered one of the foremost national experts on barrier removal and river connectivity, regularly lecturing, instructing, and publishing on these topics over the last 30 years of her professional engineering career within the U.S. and internationally. She has been involved in hundreds of barrier removal projects throughout the U.S., both as a consultant and currently as the Vice President of Ecological Restoration at Save the Sound (an environmental non-profit in the US), working on all aspects of the projects from inception through design and construction. Laura is on the grant selection panel for the Open Rivers Program, reviewing hundreds of dam removal proposals throughout Europe, and was an advisor for the Adaptive Management of Barrier on European Rivers (AMBER) program, a four-year research effort looking at barrier removal and adaptive management solutions for dams and rivers. Ms. Wildman received her Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from the University of Vermont, her Master of Environmental Management from Yale University, and conducted postgraduate work within the Engineering and the Environment Program at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom, with a focus on the evolution of the dam removal movements in the U.S. and Europe. Laura has served on the AFS and ASCE-EWRI governing boards and is a past president of the Bioengineering Section of AFS. Her expertise also includes fluvial geomorphology, fisheries habitat/flow analysis, dam modification/repair, open channel hydraulics, and advanced hydraulic and sediment transport modeling.
Lisa has been a dam removal project manager at American Rivers since 2008, during which time she has managed more than 100 dam removal design and construction projects in the Eastern US. Lisa’s responsibilities include identifying priority watersheds for dam removal investment, cultivating projects, engaging dam owners and the community to build support, procuring and contracting for professional services, fundraising, and engaging regulatory and resource agencies. In engaging dam owners and the community, Lisa finds many common barriers to dam removal: 1) most community residents lack the scientific knowledge to understand how rivers work; 2) people are emotionally attached to dams; 3) people fear change; and 4) most people lack the imagination to envision the river without the dam in place. To address these barriers, Lisa has developed best practices to build relationships, expand understanding and acceptance of dam removal, and help the community embrace the benefits of dam removal. She will provide these best practices to workshop attendees via interactive instruction.
Important information
Date: April 13-14, 2024 – Groningen, The Netherlands
Day 1 (Saturday) – 12:30-17:00 – social aspects of dam removals (dinner 18:30)
Day 2 (Sunday) – 11:00-17:00 – technical part of dam removals
The price per student is 360€ and includes the course two coffee breaks and a social dinner.
Sponsored by
