Scandinavian countries have rather long experience in fishway construction. In Finland, however, the heavy water building activities after the second world war, the old design principles and decreasing stocks of migratory fish have demanded the experts and authorities to find new solutions. Due to the fact that the need of fishways are rather uniformly distributed over Finland, the construction sites can also be found in environments each having their own design parameters and principles to be followed. This paper describes the use of these design philosophies with an aid of two case studies - the first situating in the urban area, in the middle of the city, the second being a part of river flood protecting works in the middle of low farmland area.