Posted on May, 20 2015

Vienna, Austria – WWF presented today the new rescue measures for the soda lakes of the Neusiedler See-Seewinkel National Park. Newly constructed dams were built to rescue the salt lakes whose numbers have declined since 1858 from 139 to the current 24 reasonably intact water bodies. The dams are now raising the water level and reducing the washing out of salt. All involved stakeholders, like the National Park, the land owner and the municipality, had agreed on the height of the dams. This guaranteed that no agrocultural land or residential areas were harmed.

The project was implemented with The Coca-Cola Company, Burgenland Hydraulic Engineering, the Apetlon community, and the National Park authority. WWF’s seven-year Partnership For a Living Danube with Coca Cola aims to restore wetlands in Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria and also includes a project in Austria.

The last soda lakes in Austria are a unique habitat next to the lake Neusiedler See and close to Coca-Cola’s Edelstal production facility. These last lakes -- with their milky-white waters -- were threatened by drainage channels and high water use for farming, and consequently by lower ground water levels. This resulted in an interruption of salt transport from the groundwater to the soil surface.

The partners worked to close drainage ditches and thus raise groundwater to its former levels, which led to bringing back to nature 650,000 to 1,000,000 m3 of water.

The disappearance of the lakes would have been a blow not only for European nature conservation. Tourism in the region would have also greatly suffered, as it depends on the abundance of flora -- mainly birds -- around the salt habitats. Agriculture was also affected by the low ground water levels. The joint project managed to bring the interests of all parties under one roof and to jointly establish a pioneering conservation project for the salt lakes.