River Management and Restoration: Experts from all over Europe meet at the University of Vienna

"River renaturations have become a huge topic within the environmental discourse worldwide. Through the restoration of the natural habitat along rivers, we not only protect the aquatic ecosystem and ensure the supply of water for the future. At the same time, we also safeguard the terrestrial ecosystem and the wetlands, which are dependent on the health of the ecosystem of these rivers", says the workshop organizer, Friedrich Schiemer, head of the Department of Limnology and Hydrobotany of the University of Vienna. Water influences all spheres of life, especially drinking water abstraction, irrigation systems, sewage disposal, hydropower, flood protection, navigation, recreation and tourism. Scientists from all over Europe will come together in order to debate, how the European water resources can be protected sustainably despite all these different requirements and how the criteria of the Water Framework Directive of the European Union can thus be fulfilled.

Need for action to protect rivers
It is the intent of the Water Framework Directive to create a unified European regulation framework for the protection of water and to prevent the further ecologic deterioration of rivers. Until 2015, all inland waters must be restored in such a way that they are in good ecological and chemical condition. The demanded water quality will be tested with the help of biological, hydromorphological, chemical and physical analyses. It is essential that water resource management take into account the changing water supplies and uses caused by global warming.

Goals, experts, and excursus
The workshop provides an opportunity to set up new interdisciplinary co-operations that allow ecologists, hydrologists and geomorpholoists to work together even more closely. Furthermore, the international experts will begin to develop new prognosis models in order to be able to calculate the effects of renaturations and their socioeconomic consequences. Additional goals of the workshop, apart from the general exchange of scientific ideas, are the implementation of a subject-specific jargon and the further development of existing modelling techniques. As far as content is concerned, researchers will focus on the political feasibility of water protection programmes, since different stakeholders from fields as varied as navigation or the supply of drinking water can be important players of river renaturation projects. Moreover, the workshop participants will search for opportunities of directly implementing their scientific findings in concrete management programmes.

Workshop participants will include: Tom Buijse (Deltares Institut, Netherlands) Maciej Zalewski (Direktor Regional Ecohydrology UNESCO, Lodz/Poland), Georg Rast (Referee for hydraulic engineering and water management/WWF Germany, Frankfurt am Main) and Jan Sendzimir (IIASA, International Institute of Applied System Analyses, Laxenburg/Austria).

The River Danube is an example of a successfully conducted renaturation programme. In order to demonstrate practical issues of such a project, there will be an excursion to "Orth an der Donau".
 
Further information and workshop programme: www.univie.ac.at/RiverRestoration09

Contact
O. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Friedrich Schiemer
Head of the Department of Limnology and Hydrobotany
University of Vienna
1090 Vienna, Althanstraße 14 (UZA I)
T +43-1-4277-543 40
E-Mail: friedrich.schiemer(at)univie.ac.at

Press office
Mag. Veronika Schallhart
Public Relations and Events Management
University of Vienna
1010 Wien, Dr.-Karl-Lueger-Ring 1
T +43-1-4277-175 30
M +43-664-602 77-175 30
veronika.schallhart(at)univie.ac.at
www.univie.ac.at/175

Capture: Aerial View of the Danube anabranch near Haslau/Lower Austria
Copyright: Nationalpark Donau-Auen, Kovacs-Images