Useful workshop on river restoration in Nußdorf-Debant

This May the DRAVALIFE project team took part in a river restoration workshop in Nußdorf-Debant, Austria. The course was organized by the Integrative planning office REVITAL  and WWF Austria.

The participants from water management, nature conservation and NGOs learned about river restoration measures to improve sediment balance of rivers according to the newly published river restoration toolbox.

Besides the two days of indoor course and discussion, an excursion to best practice examples of river restoration measures was undertaken. The team visited fresh and old restoration sites at the rivers Schwarzach, Isel and Drava, and were able to learn about measures as well as about long-time development of river restoration.

The Schwarzach River close to Gîrtschach

The team was guided by an expert team of REVITAL (Klaus Michor and Stephan Senfter), by Herbert Mandler from the Carinthian water management and by Gregory Egger from “naturraumplanung egger”. A special highlight was the visit of the “water house” of the national park Hohe Tauern in St. Jakob in Defereggen (https://www.hausdeswassers.at/), where the team was fascinated by simple water experiments, outdoor education and a vivid presentation done by biologist Brigitte Eckle. This was of special interest for the new water school close Legrad in Croatia, that was established in the DRAVALIFE project by Croatian Waters.

Restauration of The Drava River near Obergottesfeld

The “lessons learned” will be transferred to our river restoration measures on Drava within the DRAVALIFE project.