Honestly this sounds like mostly poor engineering planification and analysis. If you look at the dams with a lot of sediment it's mostly in South-East Asia and Africa while Europe/North America have little of it.
Asia's rivers have by far the highest level of sediment of any continent [1] meanwhile the US has quietly destroyed over 1000 dysfunctional dams in the post war period [2]
[1] https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/WR0...
[2] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/dam-removals/