The development of dams and hydropower plants have together with over-fishing of the oceans significantly hampered the salmon and trout migration to suitable spawning areas and the development of tourism along many rivers. Attempts have been made to mitigate this effect by construction of artificial fishways by-passing the dams and by the release of hatchery-grown smolts upstream the dams. Sometimes also alternative downstream migration routes have been created to allow both smolts and kelts to avoid turbines and unsuitable spillways. These attempts have often had rather limited success, depending inter alia on the lack of systematic knowledge of fish behaviour and biological prerequisites, competing interests of parties concerned and shortage of funds. 

We have designed fishways both in the Himalayas and in northern Europe. Presently we are involved in the creation of fishways for both upstream and downstream migration of anadromous salmonids in some of Europe’s most important salmon rivers, the Ume-Vindel and Pite Rivers in northern Sweden.