Abstract Fishways are hydraulic structures designed to dissipate the energy of flowing water in order to decrease water velocities and increase water depths. The history of fishways is long, the first written remarks date back to the 17th century. Fishway hydraulics, however, have been intensively studied only starting since the 1980's. Fishways have been classified into three main categories according to their hydraulic characteristics: pool-and-weir, vertical slot, and Denil fishways. Fishways are hydraulically complex structures, and thus designing tools for different fishway types have been developed. In this report, a new designing procedure has been established, and equations for each main fishway type have been suggested. In addition, flow conditions below different fishway types have been examined, and velocity distributions at weirs with V-shaped crests in both pool-and-weir fishways and at a single weir have been compared in different discharges and drops. Fishway flows have been compared with flows over single weirs.