The 7th workshop of the forum "Fish Protection and Downstream Migration" was dedicated to the topic of improving the implementation of measures at the end of the second cycle of the forum. The workshop took place in Dresden in April 2018. Important to this workshop was the task of creating a summary of the intense discourse that had taken place between all of the stakeholders over the past six years. These discourses were then synthesized into twelve guidelines. The recommendations and results of the event are available for download.

Around 100 people participated in the workshop, which was organized by the Federal Environment Agency with the support of Ecologic Institute and funded in the second cycle from 2015 to 2018 within the framework of the Environmental Research Plan. Taking into consideration the tentative and problematic implementation of fish protection and downstream migration measures, the workshop participants addressed three main topics under the overarching theme "Improving the implementation of measures".

Intensive discussions about how to create guidelines for fish protection and downstream migration were held in a working group. The corresponding DWA working group is working on the preparation of such a best practice handbook. Furthermore, potential research topics for fish protection and downstream migration (research workshop II) were discussed and prioritized. In the third working group, success factors for the initiation, monitoring and implementation of fish protection and fish migration measures were specified, and subsequently synthesized in the form of recommendations.  These recommendations can serve as guidelines for cooperation for successful implementation of measures and support the authorities in taking proper action. They also provide investment security for hydropower plant operators as well as guidelines for general communication and transparency.

During the workshop, planned, ongoing and recently completed projects and initiatives on fish protection and downstream migration were also presented during a poster exhibition.

The results of the event can be found on the Forum's project website (in German).