Should Dams be Removed or Maintained?

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Should Dams be Removed or Maintained?
Climate change has caused varying levels of changes and events that led to many dams becoming more hazardous than functional or helpful. Hence, scientists or researchers have an ongoing debate on whether dams should be removed or maintained. The removal of dams is not a sound solution to biophysical and biogeochemical problems arising from climate change. Maavara et al. (2014) have noted that one of the primary benefits of maintaining dams is the ecological impact of nutrient retention in dams on the biodiversity of adjacent rivers, estuaries, and surrounding seas. A specific example is the retention of dissolved silicon in adjacent bodies of water, allowing for the growth of diatoms, which help in carbon fixation and maintaining the marine food web in some areas. On the other hand, Wang et al. (2018) argue that dams affect the geomorphology, water quality, and temperature, which results in the disruption of aquatic ecology; hence dams may not be beneficial to all areas or ecosystems. However, dam removals have consequences, such as excessive erosion (Foley et al., 2017), increased toxicity, and contamination of sediments (Magilligan et al., 2016). Moreover, Maavara et al. (2020) have also noted that dam removals cause riverbed degradation and nutrient sedime...