Senior Ecologist, Waterschap Roer en Overmaas

Presenting: Downstream migration of fish, an underestimated phenomenon

Since 25 years Rob Gubbels is working for the Roer en Overmaas water authority. This water authority is responsible for the management of rivers and streams in de southern part of the Dutch province of Limburg. As senior ecologist Rob is involved in the renaturation of streams, the construction of fishways, studies of fish ecology and the monitoring of fish migration. Together with the Roer Fishery Management Commission Rob coordinated and participated in the monitoring of fish migration (2009 – 2014) in the lower part of the river Roer at the ECI hydropower plant.

PhD, Environment Agency, UK

Presenting: Standardized evaluation methods to monitor fish pass performance

Jon is a Senior Technical Specialist within National Fisheries Service of the Environment Agency. He currently leads a small team specialising in fish passage, screening, eel and salmon regulation, and fish monitoring. He has nearly 20 years experience in hydroacoustic fish sampling techniques, including mobile split-beam surveys of rivers and lakes, multibeam studies using ARIS / DIDSON and high resolution acoustic tracking studies. He has increasingly been involved in the development of methodological standards, including Project Leader for the recently published CEN mobile hydroacoustic standard.

Associate Professor, PhD, River Ecology and Management, Karlstad University

Presenting: On the performance of a new upstream and downstream passage facility for diadromous fish species

Olle Calles is an associate professor in fish ecology at Karlstad University, Sweden. He has a PhD in biology from Karlstad University and a MSc in biology from Uppsala University. He has worked on fish migration and fish passage solutions at hydroelectric plants since 2001, with a special emphasis on nature-like design and downstream passage facilities. Olle has conducted multiple projects on fish passage in collaboration with hydropower companies, researchers and managers in Sweden, Italy, Latvia, Costa Rica and Greece.

Ph.D., Peter FishConsulting

Presenting: Downstream migration of fishes at big hydropower plants in Switzerland: completed and future research activities

Studies in biology at ETH Zurich. Doctoral thesis in fish biology at Eawag/ETH Zurich. Postdoc at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver BC Canada. Until 2014 senior scientist and group leader/project leader at Eawag (Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology). Research focus on fish habitat, fish migration, fish passage at hydropower plants, artificial barriers. PIT-Tagging and radio telemetry studies. In 2015 company foundation of Peter FishConsulting.

Manager of the Ecohydraulic Pole, Onema-IMFT

Presenting: Efficiency of fish-friendly intakes, bypasses associated with low bar-spacing trashracks, for downstream migration of Atlantic salmon smolt

After 15 years as a University lecturer and researcher in a team working on aquatic ecological issues (Lyon, France), Pierre Sagnes is at the head of the Onema-IMFT ecohydraulics team, in Toulouse, since 2014. One of the Onema's (the French National Agency for Water and Aquatic Environments) missions is to manage and develop research actions aiming to provide applied solutions to enhance the quality and the functioning of freshwater ecosystems. In this context, in association with the Fluid Mechanics Institute of Toulouse, the ecohydraulics team mainly works on developing technical solutions to improve fish displacements in fragmented rivers and to better understand the relationships between hydrology, fish migratory behaviour and fish habitat.

Professor (Lector) at HZ-University of Applied Sciences, Vlissingen, The Netherlands

Presenting: Fish Friendliness of Ultra Low Head Turbines

Jacob van Berkel is a scientist and entrepreneur, active on sustainable energy sources, with a focus on hydropower. As a professor (lector) at HZ University of Applied Sciences and with his consultancy company Entry Technology he serves both the public as well as the private sector. As an independent advisor to the Dutch government, he is involved in research relating to the Dutch hydropower stations and also (future) tidal power plants. Together with technical- and ecological experts he analyses energy performance and fish friendliness of low and ultra-low head turbines and investigates options for improvement.

Ingineer-Researcher, EDF

Presenting: Eel mortality during downstream migration in the Rhine : present results on eel dynamic migration, eel turbine mortality and solutions considered for the Rhine HPP

Dr Eric De Oliveira (M) joined EDF in 2005 as engineer-researcher in biology. He is involved in 2 projects. The first deals with the impact of the power plant on the marine environment and the problem of clogging of the cooling water system. The second one concerns the fish passage at hydropower plant. His research area in this project covers migration dynamics (co-supervisor of a PhD) of fishes, fish behaviours and fish passage design using telemetry methods and other methods such as optical and acoustic cameras. With other department form EDF Lab., he develops new environmental monitoring system, such as remote sensing for seabed habitat or using acoustic methods to measure the passage efficiency in fish passage devices. Before joining EDF, from 1996 to 1998, he was in subantarctic island (Crozet Archipelago), in charge of the field activities of the project “Biodiversity evaluation and ecosystem transformation in a subantarctic island”. After, he did a PhD on fish stock assessment and especially using the geostatistical approaches. In 2003, he did a postdoc with Ifremer which was part of an Interreg MESH Project. The subject of the postdoc was to develop and build methods and model to predict the distribution of seabed habitat.

Fish migration specialist at ATKB

Presenting: Maximum admissible mortality per river stretch of migratory fish species (salmonids and silver eel) by hydropower stations – Dutch approach

Tim has 27 years of experience in fish, fisheries and fish migration research. He started his career in 1989 at the Netherlands Fisheries Research Institute in IJmuiden (IMARES). In 1991 he was employed by the Organisation for the Improvement of Inland Fisheries (OVB), first as a project manager (1991 – 2000) and later as the head of the research department (2000 – 2005). From 2005 to 2010 he was managing director of VisAdvies, a small private company specialising in fish migration research and telemetry. From 2010 until now he is employed by ATKB. Since the beginning of his career he is working on large fish migration projects on the rivers Rhine and Meuse and at estuaries like Haringvliet, Nieuwe Waterweg and lake IJsselmeer. He is also a specialist on the effect of hydro power stations and cooling water (intakes) on fish.

Business Development Manager, CDM Smith

Presenting: Legal requirements for fish protection and technical guidelines on downstream passage in Germany

Mr. Redeker is a Civil Engineer, specialized in water management. In 2003 he completed a post-graduate MBA degree. He has 20 years international work experience in project management, consultancy, policy and feasibility studies as well as technical designs. His special interests include river restoration, fish passage, river engineering, hydraulic modeling and hydropower.

Due to several professional affiliations, for example being chairman of the Expert Committee on Fishways of the DWA, and former member of the New Zealand Land and Water Forum, Mr. Redeker is familiar with and involved in water policy issues, and development of best practice guidelines.

Mr. Redeker joined CDM Smith in 2016. His responsibilities include the development of national and international water business and services portfolio, but also provision of project management and technical expertise.

Research scientist, Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, NINA and Adjunct professor, University of Tromsø, Norway

Presenting: I beep, therefore I am? An overview of the use of telemetry methods in studies of fish downstream migration.

Eva Thorstad has been working with fish ecology, habitat use and migrations in freshwater, estuaries and marine systems in Norway and several other European, African and Asian countries. Her main expertise is in exploitation and management of fish resources including catch advice, effects of salmon farming, hydropower development, migration barriers, pollution and other human impacts. Methodological expertise in electronic telemetry tagging and other fish monitoring methods. Particular knowledge of Atlantic salmon, brown trout and European eel.

Dipl.-Phys., Ingenieurbüro Floecksmühle GmbH

Presenting: Ecological evaluation of a river system with additional water power utilization

Pia Anderer, born in 1959, studied physics at Friedrich-Wilhelm University, Bonn, where she graduated 1984 with her Diploma in High Energy Physics. Between 1985 and 1992 she worked as scientific assistant at the lighting department of Philips research laboratories, Aachen. After additional studies in energy consultancy and energy management at TU Berlin (1993/1994) she made freelance energy consulting and took part in the setup of the first larger windturbine in Aachen. Since 1999 Pia Anderer is responsable project manager at Ingenieurbüro Floecksmühle GmbH. She was in charge for several studies regarding hydro power potential and the impact of weirs and hydropower stations on the status of rivers and river systems.

Federal Environment Agency

Presenting: Results of the Forum Fish Protection (DE)

1990 – 1995 studies: geography, biology, meteorology at Humboldt Universität Berlin.

1995 – 1998 scientific assistant, Freie Universität Berlin, DFG GTZ project, post- and late glacial landscape development Uvs Nuur (NW Mongolia)“.

1998 – 2002 scientific assistant, German Federal Institute of Hydrology (BfG), BMBF project, Importance of tributaries for sediment transport of the river Elbe“. Since 2002 scientific assistant, Federal Environment Agency (Germany), section “surface waters”

Engaged in/ field of work: Implementation process of water framework directive in Germany- especially influence of hydropower and navigation on ecological status and opportunities to mitigate their effects.

Capacity: Member of LAWA expert group “Hydromorphology” and Coordinator of Forum Fish Protection and Downstream Migration (Germany)