National

Aquatic Barrier Inventory & Prioritization Tool

Aquatic Barrier Tool

Great Plains & Intermountain West Region

Great Plains & Intermountain West region map
Map of 107,130 inventoried dams and 6,017 road-related barriers likely to impact aquatic organisms in the Great Plains & Intermountain West region.

Includes 9 states with:

107,130 inventoried dams, including:

  • 334 that have been reconned for social feasibility of removal
  • 139 that have been removed or mitigated, gaining 15,084 miles of reconnected rivers and streams

1,055,962 or more potential road-related aquatic barriers, including:

  • 9,088 that have been assessed for impacts to aquatic organisms
  • 6,017 that are likely to impact aquatic organisms
  • 1,005 that have been removed or mitigated, gaining 6,881 miles of reconnected rivers and streams

Progress toward restoring aquatic connectivity:

year removed
show:miles gained|number removed
2024
104 miles
2023
2,257 miles*
2022
1,639 miles*
2021
249 miles*
2020
884 miles*
2010-2019
6,630 miles*
2000-2009
8,718 miles*
before 2000
596 miles*
unknown
888 miles*
dams
road-related barriers
* includes 89 dams and / or road-related barriers that could not be correctly located on the aquatic network or were otherwise excluded from the analysis; these contribute toward the count but not the miles gained.
Note: counts above may include both completed as well as active barrier removal or mitigation projects.
Explore how many dams or road-related barriers there are in a state, county, or watershed.
Explore dams and road-related barriers that have been removed or mitigated by state, county, or watershed.
Identify and rank dams or road-related barriers that reconnect the most high-quality aquatic networks.

Statistics by state:

Inventoried damsReconned damsAssessed road-related barriers
Colorado13,97164824
Iowa4,4292710
Kansas22,44321,475
Montana15,590473,841
Nebraska16,78455
North Dakota6,44525184
South Dakota18,2705484
Utah3,57969722
Wyoming10,0481171,553
Total107,1303349,088

5,828 inventoried dams and 2,008 assessed road-related barriers were not analyzed because they could not be correctly located on the aquatic network or were otherwise excluded from the analysis. You can optionally include these in your download.

Note: These statistics are based on inventoried dams and road-related barriers. Because the inventory is incomplete in many areas, areas with a high number of dams may simply represent areas that have a more complete inventory.

Data Sources

Records describing dams and road-related barriers within Montana include those maintained by the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks.
Information on aquatic barriers in Wyoming is a product of the Wyoming Game & Fish Department, including field data collection in coordination with the Southeast Aquatic Resources Partnership.
Records describing dams and road-related barriers within Utah include those maintained by the Utah Barrier Assessment Inventory Tool.

You can help!

You can help improve the inventory You can help improve the inventory by sharing data, assisting with field reconnaissance to evaluate the impact of aquatic barriers, or even by reporting issues with the inventory data in this tool.

Contact us to learn more about how you can help improve aquatic connectivity in the Great Plains & Intermountain West region.