Boat tour to the Integrated River Engineering Project at the Danube East of Vienna

The “Catalogue of Measures for the Danube east of Vienna” covers a multitude of innovative river engineering measures designed to stabilize the decrease in water levels, preserve the unique habitats of the Danube floodplains and create a waterway infrastructure that fulfills the requirements of safe and economic navigation. In order to achieve these goals, viadonau continually carries out maintenance and conservation activities and implements river engineering optimisation projects. The “Catalogue of Measures” is the result of an integrative planning process and is based on the findings of the multi-year concept- and pilot project phase of the ‘Integrated River Project on the Danube East of Vienna’ (FGP). Besides involving various different stakeholders, the scientifically monitoring and accompaniment of measures plays an important role in finding and achieving socially and environmentally compatible solutions.

This tour will start at the piers near the Reichsbrücke nearby the conference venue where we will board our ship. This Danube cruise will lead us downstream of Vienna directly through the National Park “Donau-Auen” where we will examine the efforts of the “Catalogue of Measures for the Danube east of Vienna” such as groyne adaptations, reconnection of side-arms, restoration of river banks, etc.). For the way back upstream, buses are ready to take us back to from Hainburg to Vienna.

River Lab

This laboratory, which has been planned and will be run by BOKU, is unique among hydraulic laboratories worldwide: with a discharge of 10.000 l/s without pumping it offers a new dimension in scale issue modelling. Experiments can be conducted in an indoor and an outdoor lab. Further, the facility provides a public lab and a big auditorium. Technical Tours will guide you through this unique facility and explain the concept as well as the experimental settings of current projects.

“Donau Auen” National Park

This bus tour will guide you directly to the heart of the famous National Park “Donau Auen”. During a scientifically guided tour through the National Park Visitor Centre in the picturesque castle Schloss Orth the unique features of the National Park and its fascinating history will be explained. On a nature trail outside of the castle, we will have the opportunity to see indigenous plants and animals. Further, we will take a walk inside the National Park directly to the river banks of the Danube. Here, we will see some of the measures taken to improve ecological functions and sediment transport issues (e.g. restoration of river banks, reconnection of side-arms, adaptation of groynes, etc.).

Vienna’s flood protection system

During this tour, you will visit some of the most interesting flood protection schemes such as the diversion weir, the Danube Island and the bypass-channel (“Neue Donau”), which do not only serve flood protection but also function as recreation and ecological habitat areas. This tour will be accompanied by experts giving us detailed information about this amazing flood protection project.

Hydropower plant Freudenau

We will make a short bus ride to the hydropower plant Freudenau which is situated at the Danube River in the east of Vienna. A guided tour will offer us a look behind the scenes of modern electricity generation. We will have the chance to see the turbines, the lock and the fish bypass-channel. Moreover, information about the history of hydropower generation at the Danube will be given.

Vienna’s main wastewater treatment plant

Vienna’s main wastewater treatment plant is located in Simmering, one of Vienna’s topographically lowest zones close to where the Danube Canal flows into the Danube. All of Vienna’s wastewater is cleaned here. On dry-weather days, more than 500,000 m³ of wastewater – the water flow of a medium-sized river – pass through the plant’s mechanical stage and both biological treatment stages. After around 20 hours, the purified water flows via the Danube Canal into the Danube River.
We will visit this huge facility which ranks amongst the most modern in the world. After this technical visit we will head to the city’s center where we will explore the historical part of the sewage system which has been used as scenary for the famous movie “The Third Man”.

Technical Tour related to Workshop “Good practices for implementing Nature-based Solutions: how to link science with stakeholder dialogues”

You are invited to a short brown-bag lunch workshop followed by a dedicated field trip to the Danube National Park where Nature-based Solution (NbS) measures have been implemented. During this event we will discuss the importance of stakeholder involvement, the process to come to implementation and the role of good stakeholder involvement techniques in general terms: what type of efforts are needed to really make it happen and what kind of practical lessons learnt can be shared. We address how we can bring scientific results in a good manner to the table, and optimize interaction between disciplines.

Using the case of implemented measures in the Danube Floodplains close to Vienna as an example, we also discuss how context specific aspects may influence stakeholder processes. After the short workshop we move to the Danube floodplains and take rafts to visit some key-examples of implemented NbS.

More information here.