Improving the ecological status of fish communities in inland waters
International Symposium and EFI+ Workshop
30th March to 3rd April 2009, Hull, UK

Dear Colleagues
The EFI+ project consortium and the University of Hull International
Fisheries Institute are pleased
to announce an international symposium and workshop on: Improving the
ecological status of fish
communities in inland waters.

Rationale and background
Current world-wide developments in the legislative basis of the
management of water resources (e.g.
WFD, EU Habitats Directive, Clean Water Act [USA]) have underpinned the
importance of conserving
or improving the ecological status of rivers, lakes & estuaries in the
face of increasing human
pressures and impacts on natural systems. These changes in legislation
have also reinforced the
importance of fish assemblages as key indicators of the ecological and
conservation status, given the
temporal and spatial scales over which fish interact with catchment
processes and human impacts.
However, whilst these changes in legislation have been widely supported
they have raised a number of
issues and difficulties for stakeholders to address. For scientists and
managers working on fish these
issues relate to both assessing current ecological status and to
developing suitable rehabilitation
programmes to improve the status of degraded systems. Much work is
currently being undertaken at
an international level to address these issues. Therefore, The
University of Hull International
Fisheries Institute and the EFI+ project are coordinating an
international symposium which addresses
current status of fish-based ecological assessment and rehabilitation
and considers what aspects are
still to be addressed for successful implementation of recent
environmental legislation.
Aims
Along with disseminating the results of the EFI+ project to the
scientific community, administrators,
and stakeholders; the symposium will extend the discussion on the
strategies needed to implement
successfully current environmental legislation with respect to
improving the status of fish
communities. Selected presentations will be published in peer-reviewed
proceedings.
In addition to the symposium a one-day workshop (3rd April 2009) for
managers and end-users will be
held to present and use the tools produced in the EFI+ project.

Interested parties should register for the event via the HIFI website
(www.hull.ac.uk/hifi/EFI/ ) or
email [log in to unmask] 


The EFI+ Consortium
The EFI+ Consortium acknowledges the financial support of the European
Commission, within the Scientific Support of Policies of the 6th
Framework Programme (contract no: 044096) http://efi-plus.boku.ac.at/.
EFI+ project: Prof. Stefan Schmutz,
Institute of Hydrobiology and Aquatic Ecosystem Management, University
of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences,
Vienna, Austria ([log in to unmask])

Univ.Prof. DI Dr. Stefan SCHMUTZ
Institut für Hydrobiologie und Gewässermanagement
Department Wasser - Atmosphäre - Umwelt
BOKU - Universität für Bodenkultur Wien

Institute of HYDROBIOLOGY and AQUATIC ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT
Department of WATER, ATMOSPHERE and ENVIRONMENT
BOKU - UNIVERSITY of NATURAL RESOURCES and APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES 

Max Emanuel-Strasse 17, 1180 Vienna, Austria
phone: 43-1-47654-5202, fax: 43-1-47654-5217 
http://www.boku.ac.at/hfa
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