Inland Fisheries Ireland had a visit from Jim Kerr from Southampton University (International Centre for Ecohydraulics Research). IFI demonstration Careysville weir was visited, where mitigation work in the form of a weir breach is planned. Discussion points over the couple of days included rapid assessment techniques to assess fish passage, including planned collaborative work on this topic between Inland Fisheries Ireland and Southampton University. The development of decision support tools to guide management of barriers is a high priority for Inland Fisheries Ireland as well as a key objective for AMBER.

Several AMBER partners visited the Fish Passage Conference in Corvalis, Oregon, where they received great hospitality from hosts in Oregon State University at Corvallis and from USA delegates. Both Niels Jepsen and Jimmy King gave presentations, each of which incorporated the AMBER project and provided a context in regard to barrier management and mitigation. There were a large number of presentations of relevance to AMBER – this is a specialist conference on fish passage with a large number of delegates from a large number of countries – from Asia, North and South America, Europe and Australia – New Zealand. The conference featured some particularly interesting thematic sessions on culverts and on rock ramps and fish friendly by-pass channels. Click here for more information on the conference programme.

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