On July 14th 2022 a joing team consisting of experts from viadonau, the national waterway operator in Austria, and Donau-Auen National Park visited the Schwalbeninsel island complex.
This section forms one of the most impressive WILDislands in this Danube section. Existing river regulations have however caused ongoing sedimentation processes, which limit the habitat quality and the island character is gradually getting lost.
In order to prevent this and induce the formation of a highly dynamic island landscape and natural banks, the LIFE WILDisland project provides for the removal of the embankment along 2 km, removal of all infrastructure on the island and adaptation of the groynes.
The expert team visited the site on kayaks in order to discuss the practical start and concrete location of the recontstruction works, the potential adjustments of the original plans, in order to maximize the expected results as well as logistic issues, such as site access and material storage.
In addition to that, the team could also talk through the monitoring stratregy to follow the hydrological, morpholocial and biotic impact of the provided measures. The baseline monitoring will start towards the end of 2022 to make sure we capture the state before the onset of the reconstruction works in the end of 2025.
We will keep you posted!
For more information:
Georg Frank - Donau-Auen National Park: g.frank@donauauen.at
Ursula Scheiblechner - viadonau: ursula.scheiblechner@viadonau.org
