Based upon the guiding strategic plan for the Reservoir Fisheries Habitat Partnership and Friends of Reservoirs, the following plan provides operationalized and measurable objectives to achieve the broader goals aforementioned:

1. Goal One: Protect, restore and enhance fish habitat in reservoir systems to support productive fisheries and healthy aquatic ecosystems.
2. Goal Two: Continue to develop/refine the science behind reservoir habitat conservation/restoration, including development and communication of Best Management Practices.
3. Goal Three: Manage reservoir systems to protect human and environmental health, and to provide for and enrich quality of life for the American people.
4. Goal Four: Develop and foster partnerships to cooperatively address priority reservoir fisheries habitat impairments and implement landscape-scale approaches to the conservation of fish habitat in reservoir systems.
5. Goal Five: Develop and sustain institutional arrangements and sources of funding to support the long-term conservation of fish habitat in reservoir systems
6. Goal Six: Support education and outreach initiatives that advance public awareness and understanding of the value of healthy reservoir systems.

Both the RFHP and NFHP have adopted conservation priorities meant to guide partnership strategy. These lists were not included in the broader strategic plan because they change over time in response to temporal factors affecting fish habitat, newly available scientific findings and management strategies, and policy- and program-level shifts in habitat policy or funding availability.

The NFHP National Conservation Priorities were as follows:

1. Conservation of adequate amounts of clean water for fish and fishing
   Clean and abundant water is fundamental to healthy fisheries and aquatic ecosystems. NFHP will work through its partnerships to:
   1. Conserve water quality and quantity in headwater streams;
   2. Promote best land-use practices that reduce nutrient inputs to aquatic systems and help decrease the occurrence of harmful algal blooms and hypoxic zones; and
   3. Reduce the impacts of water diversions and stream dewatering.
2. Using a watershed-based approach to conserve fish habitat connectivity
   Connected aquatic systems allow fish and other aquatic species to move between habitats necessary for feeding, spawning, growth, and survival while supporting healthy watershed function. NFHP will:
   1. Support fish habitat connectivity projects that restore watershed function, including instream flow, temperature, salinity, nutrient, and sedimentation balance; and
   2. Expand, improve, and utilize the National Aquatic Connectivity Collaborative (NACC) barrier inventory and prioritization tool to help identify and prioritize aquatic connectivity projects.
3. Conservation of healthy and productive fish habitats
   NFHP will continue working to conserve the diversity of habitats that sustain recreational, commercial, and culturally important fisheries across freshwater, coastal, and marine environments. Priorities include:
   1. Conserving nearshore and estuarine nursery habitats;
   2. Conserving and expanding kelp, coral, and other reef structures, including natural and artificial reefs;
   3. Conserving complex habitat in lake and reservoir systems; and
   4. Conserving riparian habitats.

The RFHP Conservation Priorities derive from its broader goals and support the NFHP National Conservation Priorities directly:

Operational Objectives for RFHP, Updated 2026

Operational Objectives for FOR, Updated 2026

2026–2031 Implementation, Performance, and Adaptive Management

The RFHP will implement this Strategic Plan through annual operational plans, grant cycles, committee work plans, regional priorities, Friends of Reservoirs activities, and routine performance reporting. The Strategic Plan establishes the direction for the six-year period; annual work plans will establish the specific actions, funding opportunities, and targets appropriate to current conditions.

Annual Implementation Cycle

• Review current NFHP National Conservation Priorities, Action Plan guidance, ACE Act requirements, available science, and RFHP performance results.
• Update reservoir-system prioritization information and identify the most important regional and national habitat needs for the coming grant cycle.
• Issue project opportunities and evaluate proposals using transparent criteria that consider priority, root causes, expected conservation outcomes, partnerships, monitoring, cost effectiveness, leverage, and recreational/community benefits where appropriate.
• Track project implementation and collect annual and completion reports, monitoring information, photographs, and other documentation of results.
• Communicate accomplishments to partners, sponsors, anglers, local communities, NFHP, and other stakeholders.
• Use results and lessons learned to refine priorities, project-selection criteria, science, BMPs, communications, and future investments.

Five-Year Strategic Review

RFHP will conduct a formal strategic review during the fifth year of the planning cycle, or sooner if major changes in NFHP policy, federal authorization, funding, science, or partnership structure warrant an earlier review. The review will evaluate progress toward conservation outcomes, the effectiveness of project-selection criteria, the adequacy of science and decision-support tools, partnership and funding capacity, communications effectiveness, and alignment with current NFHP Action Plan goals and National Conservation Priorities.

Performance Measurement Framework

RFHP will use a tiered performance framework. Activity measures will document what the partnership does; output measures will document what is produced; and conservation outcome measures will document changes in habitat condition, ecological function, fish populations or communities, connectivity, water quality, public access, recreational fishing opportunity, community participation, or other project-specific benefits. Not every project will measure every outcome. Measures will be selected to be scientifically defensible, practical for the project scale, and appropriate to the conservation action.

National Conservation Priorities as a Living Element of the Plan

The National Conservation Priorities are intentionally treated as a living element of the RFHP Strategic Plan. The 2026–2031 plan therefore does not lock RFHP into a single set of annual NCPs. Instead, RFHP will review and incorporate the current NFHP NCPs into annual operational planning, project scoring, and performance reporting while maintaining the enduring strategic direction established by this plan.

Communications Plan

Our Communications Plan is a subset of the overall Operations Plan. Accordingly, it is reviewed and updated annually as part of operations. The items below are repeated from above, but specific to communications needs of RFHP and FOR.

Communications entails management of communications to internal stakeholders (e.g., RFHP agency representatives, FOR chapter members, and interested anglers) and communications to partners (e.g., sponsors). The first is generally handled by the Communications Coordinator, who specializes in communication technology, while the latter is handled by the Development Coordinator, who specializes in partnership building.

Pertinent Operational Objectives for RFHP, Updated 2026

Operational Objectives for FOR, Updated 2026