A modular spiral fishway is designed to provide fish ascent and descent in a confined space as a compact fish exchange facility. While maintaining the state of the art, the spiral fishway is scalable to all fish species, sizes and needs, as well as to countless site specifics – from the smallest unavoidable step in a stream to high impoundments. A continuous bottom substrate layer will also provide bottom-oriented fish species and macrozoobenthos with a seamless continuous migration corridor.

Within the R&D cooperation project, the Chair of Hydraulic Engineering is designing a three-dimensional flow simulation model for the evaluation, construction and design of different designs. The technical-(etho-)hydraulic function of the system is tested on a real-scale model and the passability of the spiral fishway is optimized by means of preliminary tests in the laboratory and in the prototype solution.