It is here placed in Luciobarbus following the IUCN, but that genus is very closely related to the other typical barbels and perhaps better considered a mere subgenus of Barbus.

[1] Its numbers have declined by about one-third since the 1990s due to unsustainable water usage for agriculture, pollution and competition with introduced species.

The two must have achieved reproductive isolation in the past to become as disting as they are, but damming and other construction have in recent times shifted the river's currents and changed microhabitat, so that these barbels will now meet at spawning sites more often.

Altogether however, damming will slow the river's flow to almost a standstill, creating conditions more favourable to the Iberian Barbel than to L. bocagei, and the hybridisation may actually be a sign of the rarer species becoming more plentiful.

It is also named as Protected Species in Appendix III of the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats.