Rivers under siege in Western Balkans

As of November 2019, the majority of Europe’s planned hydropower construction projects are located in the Balkans, with a total of more than 3,000 dams. Hydropower is the renewable energy source of choice due to numerous complex factors, which all overlap in Bosnia and Herzegovina – the country often considered the geographical and cultural heart of the region. Of the 446 dams that are...

Rivers are more than just a source of renewable energy. The rugged mountains of the Western Balkans and the powerful rivers that course through them comprise some of the most pristine and uncharted wilderness in Europe, and many of the dams are planned on sites within or upstream of protected areas. The extensive river systems – many of which are slated for dam construction – provide...

In Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as other Balkan countries, dam development has been met with increasingly organized public resistance. Groups such as the Bosnian NGO Eko Akcija have developed tools to educate and galvanize those who value healthy river systems. One institutional pathway for opposition, the public hearing process, is highly controversial and has been largely abandoned by...

Margaret Cormack is a program assistant at the DC Sustainable Energy Utility, based in Washington, DC, United States, who explores economic, social, and environmental aspects of the water-energy nexus in her published work. For a list of sources, contact the author at: mag.k.cor@gmail.com.