River fragmentation and barrier assessment methods in Ireland: Research Seminar day by Inland Fisheries Ireland

On the 13 December 2017 a research seminar session took place in Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI), Dublin. Jimmy King opened the seminar giving the research staff from IFI in attendance a brief overview of the challenges currently faced as a result of man-made barriers which lead to habitat fragmentation and its impact on hydromorphology. Brian Coghlan (IFI) gave a presentation on methods undertaken to identify and map potential barriers at the catchment scale and the development of the national barrier database and future work which will be undertaken. This presentation was then followed by James Barry (AMBER & IFI) who presented results on barrier assessment methods and protocols used by IFI to estimate the passability of barriers for migratory fish and the importance of such methods as a tool for fishery managers tasked with assessing the fish passability at man-made barriers.

The research seminar provided an opportunity to raise awareness of the AMBER project and its goal of applying adaptive management to the operation of barriers in European rivers highlighting the importance of achieving a more efficient restoration of stream connectivity, and address impacts caused by river fragmentation