The Biodiversity and Environment Institute of the University of Navarra has been awarded a project grant to carry out a research study on the impact of dams on fish fauna. This grant, awarded by the Fundación Biodiversidad del Ministerio para la Transición Ecológica y el challenge Demográfico, will allow the Institute to investigate the conservation of Iberian fish and analyze the impact on these species of the construction or removal of dams in rivers.

The project graduate "Analysis of the ecological connectivity of dams in relation to the conservation status of Iberian fish: an approach multidisciplinary(ConnectFish)" will receive an economic endowment of 300,000 Euros for the next two and a half years.

The goal of this project is to evaluate the impact that dams cause on the Iberian fish fauna in a multidisciplinary way, and to measure the social perception that citizens have about dams and river restoration. The final goal is to develop a tool that facilitates decision-making on the prioritization and location of future dams or the demolition of existing ones, as indicated by David Galicia, researcher principal of this project.

"The management of the river environment, especially when it comes to assessing the creation or removal of barriers, is a very complex task with a multitude of factors to consider. Through this study, we want to make it easier to incorporate information available on the conservation status of native fish populations and the role that dams play in their spatial dynamics into the procedure of management ."

The work team is formed by the researchers of Biodiversity and Environment Institute of the University of Navarra David Galicia and Ana Villarroya (main responsible), María Casas, Nora Escribano, Rafael Miranda and Juan José Pons. Researchers Amaia Angulo, José Barquin, Alexia María González, María Cristina Morán and Francisco Jesús Peñas from the Institute of Environmental Hydraulics of Cantabria also participate in this project .

challenge Connectfish has the support of the Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and Demographic framework (MITECO) in the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR), funded by the European Union - NextGenerationEU.

The Biodiversity and Environment Institute of the University of Navarra is a research center that aims to respond, based on scientific evidence, to the main environmental challenges facing the world. The Institute is formed by fifty researchers working in four main areas: management of ecosystems, anthropogenic impacts, global change and biodiversity, and science communication.