Short Courses

All courses will be held in the Conference Venue facilities, the National Laboratory for Civil Engineering - LNEC, on the 28th of June.  To participate in the courses use the link to register for the conference and select which course you would like to attend. Additional details (e.g. agenda, additional instructors) will be made available later in the year.
 
The cost of the courses is not included in the conference registration fee. Courses that do not attract a minimum number of participants will be canceled, and in such cases, your course fee will be fully reimbursed. You will be notified and offered an opportunity to join one of the remaining courses if spaces are available.
 
Short Course Coordinators Duration Cost Class Size
Fishway design and monitoring Ana Lopes Quaresma
Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon, Portugal
Full day 150 € 8 - 20
Fish Telemetry Pedro R. Almeida
University of Évora, Portugal
Full day 150 € 15 - 20
Use of decision support tools for rapid barrier assessment and restoration of stream connectivity Carlos Garcia de Leaniz
Centre for Sustainable Aquatic Research, Swansea University, UK
Full day 110 €* 10 - 30
Removing Dams throughout Europe Laura Wildman
New England Regional Office/ Princeton Hydro, USA
Full day 150 € 10 - 40
Environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling for freshwater species: updates on the developments and applications to fish passage and aquatic connectivity

Guillermo Giannico
Oregon State University

Rebecca Flitcroft
United States Department of Agriculture - Forest Service

Kevin McKelvey
United States Department of Agriculture - Forest Service

Full day 150 € 10 - 35

*Note: Bursaries are available to attend Course 3.  Please click here to apply for a fee waiver (110EUR). You could also be eligible to claim up to 50 EUR towards travelling expenses.

Course 1: Fishway design and monitoring

Fishway design is complex and requires the knowledge of multiple scientific fields such as hydrology, hydraulic, biology, ecology, and civil engineering. This full-day short course will focus on technical and nature-like fishway design. An overview of fish passage solutions, design principles, and methodology, as well as fishway assessment and monitoring, will be addressed. These topics will be presented through lecture and team-based design exercises. The aim of this course is to give participants an overall look of the interdisciplinary scientific disciplines involved in the design, operation, and monitoring of fishway projects, benefiting engineers, biologists, hydrologists, environmental scientists, and other practitioners working in this field.

Course 2: Fish Telemetry

Advances in fish telemetry technology in the last two decades opened the possibility to study in detail complex behavior patterns, migrations movements and physiological profiles of many different species. Fish pass development and monitoring can take advantage of the information obtained using different types of telemetry techniques. The topics being covered on this full-day short course are: aquatic telemetry techniques used in fresh and brackish systems (e.g. radio, acoustic, PIT; DST), methodologies used in rivers and reservoirs, tagging procedures, experimental design and data analysis,  and animal welfare and ethical requirements. The main sections will be illustrated with different cases studies.  

Click here for a detailed schedule of the Fish Telemetry short course.

Course 3: Use of decision support tools for rapid barrier assessment and restoration of stream connectivity

This one-day course will provide practical guidance on the use of various decision support tools (DSTs) for rapid assessment of barrier impacts and prioritization of restoration of connectivity. Using real case studies, the course takes a hands-on, pragmatic approach on how to prioritize restoration efforts in the absence of complete, or even reliable information, and will appeal to water resource managers, engineers and students of environmental impact assessment interested on fish passage and stream restoration. This full-day short course will cover barrier inventory and estimation of fragmentation, the use of DSTs for barrier prioritization and mitigation, and rapid barrier assessment (e.g. using telemetry) considering fish habitat.

Note: Bursaries are available to attend Course 3.  Please click here to apply for a fee waiver (110EUR). You could also be eligible to claim up to 50 EUR towards travelling expenses.

Click here for a detailed schedule of the decision support tools short course.

Course 4: Removing Dams throughout Europe  

This is a full-day short course for all professionals who are currently or may soon be involved in a dam removal project (engineers, biologists, hydrologists, environmental scientists, planners, project proponents, and managers). The seminar will focus on a European perspective on dam removal.  We will discuss how dam removal projects are currently being prioritized, initiated, funded, investigated, designed, implemented, and monitored.  Speakers from around Europe will share their experiences removing dams in their countries.  The instructors will discuss the key project drivers, context, project management and planning, funding, engineering design, scientific analysis, the regulatory process, and construction methods that were utilized to complete these projects.   We hope that through these parallel discussions participants become familiar with some of the many challenges, differences, and similarities of removing dams in Europe. The course will kick off by discussing some of the dam removal efforts and network building currently in the works in Europe, as well as by reviewing some of the key considerations and techniques when removing a dam (i.e. sediment management, socioeconomics, ecological impacts, infrastructure, etc.) and then move into the European case studies and lessons learned.

Course 5: Environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling for freshwater species: updates on the developments and applications to fish passage and aquatic connectivity

Effective conservation and management of freshwater species requires unprecedented levels of coordination and high-quality information to guide decision-making. Unfortunately, often simple data on species presence are lacking for many freshwater taxa, whether to describe a species' distribution in a single stream, throughout a river basin or across its range. A revolution in the assessment of aquatic species based on detecting their DNA in water samples — environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling —promises to overcome this impediment.

This full-day course will highlight the best applications of eDNA for addressing critical knowledge gaps related to freshwater species presence and distribution, with particular emphasis on passage issues for aquatic species. This workshop will encourage participants to explore applied eDNA scenarios that we will invite participants to submit. The objective of this course is to educate participants on the process of eDNA sample collection, analysis and interpretation (including issues of sample contamination and considerations for single species versus multi-species detections via technologies such as metabarcoding), while highlighting the primary advantages and current limitations of this tool. Content will include presentations by course instructors to provide context for understanding applications for eDNA tools, interactive engagement in groups to explore applied eDNA scenarios, and invited presentations by European scientists using eDNA tools.

Click here for a detailed schedule of the eDNA work shop.