Inland navigation in Europe is proposed to increase in the coming years, being promoted as a low-carbon form of transport. However, we currently lack knowledge on how this would impact biodiversity at large scales and interact with existing stressors. Here we addressed this knowledge gap by analysing fish and macroinvertebrate community time series across large European rivers comprising 19,592 observations from 4,049 sampling sites spanning the past 32 years. We found ship traffic to be associated with biodiversity declines, that is, loss of fish and macroinvertebrate taxonomic richness, diversity and trait richness. Ship traffic was also associated with increases in taxonomic evenness, which, in concert with richness decreases, was attributed to losses in rare taxa. Ship traffic was especially harmful for benthic taxa and those preferring slow flows. These effects often depended on local land use and riparian degradation. In fish, negative impacts of shipping were highest in urban and agricultural landscapes. Regarding navigation infrastructure, the negative impact of channelization on macroinvertebrates was evident only when riparian degradation was also high. Our results demonstrate the risk of increasing inland navigation on freshwater biodiversity. Integrative waterway management accounting for riparian habitats and landscape characteristics could help to mitigate these impacts.

欧洲的内河航运预计在未来几年内增加，并作为一种低碳运输方式得到推广。然而，我们目前缺乏关于这将如何大规模影响生物多样性以及与现有压力源相互作用的知识。在这里，我们通过分析欧洲主要河流的鱼类和大型无脊椎动物群落时间序列来解决这一知识差距，该时间序列包括过去 32 年来自 4,049 个采样点的 19,592 个观测值。我们发现船舶交通与生物多样性下降有关，即鱼类和大型无脊椎动物分类丰富度、多样性和性状丰富度的丧失。船舶交通还与分类均匀度的增加有关，而分类均匀度的增加与丰富度的下降相结合，归因于稀有类群的损失。船舶交通对于底栖类群和那些喜欢缓慢流动的生物尤其有害。这些影响通常取决于当地土地利用和河岸退化。对于鱼类，运输对城市和农业景观的负面影响最大。就导航基础设施而言，只有当河岸退化严重时，渠道化对大型无脊椎动物的负面影响才明显。我们的结果表明增加内陆航运对淡水生物多样性的风险。针对河岸栖息地和景观特征的综合水道管理有助于减轻这些影响。