Davis, CA — The California Fish Passage Forum hosted a technical training workshop at the May 2026 International Fish Passage Conference at UC Davis, bringing together restoration practitioners, agency staff, and researchers for an intensive, hands-on introduction to fish passage barrier assessment. The workshop drew participants from across the region eager to build field skills and technical capacity in support of landscape-scale fish passage restoration across California.
In the classroom, participants reviewed assessment protocols from Section 9 of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife Stream Restoration Manual, which provides a comprehensive framework for evaluating passage barriers, and the Rapid Assessment Protocol, designed by the Forum to efficiently collect baseline barrier data for entry into the Passage Assessment Database (PAD). Participants also received an overview of hydraulic modeling tools — including FishXing, 1D HEC-RAS, and 2D HEC-RAS — to support barrier analysis and restoration design. The workshop field portion of the workshop lead participants through real assessment measurements at an active barrier site at Putah Creek outside Davis.
Barrier assessment is the first step toward achieving fish passage restoration at a landscape scale — you can’t fix what you haven’t found and measured. The Forum will be expanding this training program to reach more practitioners across the state in the years ahead. For more information about upcoming workshops and fish passage resources, make sure you are signed up for our newsletter!
