The Instream Flow Council and collaborators provided three pre-conference technical workshops associated with FLOW 2008. Thanks to Alan Wald who coordinated the workshop planning and to The Nature Conservancy and Rushing Rivers Institute, and all speakers for contributing their expertise to the offerings.

The full-day workshops were filmed and video files were available for download through June 2010. They will be available for purchase on DVD through December 2010. To Order DVD(s) for one or more workshops, please fill out the attached form and mail it with payment ($10/workshop; checks or cash only) to: Instream Flow Council, P.O. Box 663, Bozeman, Montana, 59771.

Each of the three workshops are described below, followed by the available files for that workshop. A link to each workshop agenda is also provided. IFC thanks all workshop organizers and presenters for their willingness to make their FLOW 2008 contributions publicly available.

FLOW 2008 PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOP #1
What About those High Flows? Environmental Flow Requirements for High Flows on Streams and Rivers. - Agenda

Moderator: Alan Wald, Hydrologist, Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife. The workshop presented speakers and topics on high flow subjects important to natural resources management on natural and regulated rivers. The workshop covered high flow specifications for flushing flows, channel maintenance, floodplain connectivity, and estuarine mixing functions, as well as policy and economic considerations for high flow specifications affecting water rights, downstream users and reservoir operations. The workshop also included Q&A with the speakers.

FLOW 2008 PRECONFERENCE WORKSHOP #2
Use of the Mesohabitat Simulation Model (MesoHABSIM) for Instream Habitat Assessments - Agenda

Instructor: Piotr Parasiewicz, Rushing Rivers Institute. MesoHABSIM integrates system-scale assessment of ecological integrity in flowing waters with quantitative information on physical habitat distribution to simulate habitat changes at the watershed scale. The workshop presented the basics of MesoHABSIM application and how the approach creates a framework for the comprehensive and quantitative analysis of human-induced alterations and identifies effective flow and channel restoration measures.

FLOW 2008 PRECONFERENCE WORKSHOP #3
The Nature Conservancy's Tools and Methods for Developing Environmental Flow Recommendations - Agenda

Instructors: Brian Richter, Eloise Kendy & Tom Fitzhugh, TNC Global Freshwater Team. TNC has implemented environmental flow recommendations worldwide using a collaborative process and software tools. The workshop included an overview of environmental flows and a description of the range of tools and methods available for developing flow recommendations, including a discussion of case studies. The Indicators of Hydrologic Alteration (IHA) software was described and attendees participated in hands-on training with the software.