Water, Wetlands, and Watersheds Seminar: Unlocking rivers: a toolbox for strategic dam removal planning

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Abstract: Despite the multitude of societal services provided by aquatic barriers, their removal has become increasingly common due to factors such as the escalating costs associated with maintaining aging infrastructure, concerns related to public safety, and a growing emphasis on river restoration initiatives. This trend is expected to gain momentum globally, and particularly within the United States, owing to recent policies and increased funding allocations. This talk will focus on our recent work in facilitating strategic dam removal decision-making through the introduction of three resources – an objective-setting and metric selector tool, a decision-support prioritization framework, and a cost estimator tool.

Bio: Suman Jumani is an Applied Scientist with the Global Protect and Durable Freshwater Protection teams at The Nature Conservancy. She completed her ORISE postdoctoral fellowship with the US Army Corps of Engineers and the Network for Engineering With Nature (NEWN), and her PhD from the University of Florida. Her work is centered around freshwater systems, and spans a range of topics including dam removals, nature-based solutions, biodiversity accounting, and conservation science and planning.