The final online conference of the FIThydro project brought together over 280 participants from across the globe to explore the latest research developments on the topic of sustainable and fish friendly hydropower showcasing the final project’s results in addition to presentations by experts from outside the project on related topics. The online conference was hosted by Ecologic Institute and the Technical University of Munich.

The research project FIThydro addresses the decision support in commissioning and operating hydropower plants (HPP) by use of existing and innovative technologies. It concentrates on mitigation measures and strategies to develop cost-efficient environmental solutions and on strategies to avoid fish damage and enhancing population developments. Therefore, HPPs all over Europe are involved as test sites.

FIThydro outputs can be used to support specific steps in the planning process. In addition, most of the key outputs of FIThydro feed into a riskbased Decision Support System and an online wiki information system, which systematically guide practitioners through the main steps of impact assessment and selection of appropriate mitigation measures for hydropower plants.

The conference included 23 presentations, 3 keynote speeches and 4 moderated discussions in the following conference sessions:

1. Strategies and decision support tools to mitigate hydropower impacts on fish and fisheries using conventional and innovative cost-efficient measures
2. Assessing the response and resilience of fish populations in hydropower-affected rivers
3. Innovative Technical Solutions for  Downstream fish and sediment passage
4. Innovative methods, tools and devices for sustainable and fishfriendly hydropower

In the last session "Towards a future research agenda for fishfriendly and sustainable hydropower", highlights from the Hydropower Europe project and the feedback of European stakeholders on the FIThydro project were presented. Additionally, world-renowned experts from different disciplines were invited to give their statements on how to ensure that scientific results are used and applied in practice and on key future research topics on fishfriendly and sustainable hydropower. Conference participants were given the opportunity to express their opinions on the topics in this highly interactive session.

In addition to participants from 23 European countries, the international conference had attendees from around the world, including United States, China, Turkey, Canada, Uganda, Colombia, India, Brazil and Nepal and from different backgrounds such as research organizations, hydropower operators, private businesses and non-governmental organisations.

The presentations slides and recordings are available online.