The Wild Trout Trust used funding from The European Open Rivers Programme - a grant giving organisation dedicated to restoring rivers - and liased with landowners, the Environment Agency and The Woodland Trust to painstakingly remove this 4-m tall, 75-m wide weir from Yorkshire's River Nidd.
This "run of river" weir removal is interesting to consider as part of the wider, global movement dedicated to dam removal (including massive hydropower dams).
The weir breached in the floods of 2019 and has been removed safely - rather than left to disintegrate gradually over time, running the risk of causing bankside damage.
Removing Scotton Weir will benefit more than just migratory fish such as salmon and sea trout. All fish move up and down stream to some extent as part of their life cycles and the weir removal will help to restore natural processes to the river - particularly the transport of riverbed material including spawning gravels.
Restoring these natural processes will alter the flow and shape of the river, which in turn will change the nature of the river bed. This will provide varied habitats for invertebrates to colonise, which in turn will provide food for bird species, for instance. This is how restoring a river's natural processes can have an impact on wildlife around the river, as well as in the river and under the water itself.
Currently only 16% of rivers are rated as being in ‘Good’ condition by the Water Framework Directive and a significant cause for failure is man-made barriers interrupting a river’s flow, such as Scotton Weir on the Nidd. Recent research has shown that on average in Great Britain, there is at least one artificial barrier for every 1.5km of stream. In England, Scotland and Wales, only 1% of rivers are free from artificial barriers.
Across Europe as a whole there are in excess of 1 million artificial barriers, which collectively has what the European Open Rivers Programme describes as “a catastrophic impact on biodiversity.”
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