Greeting
Dear Readers,
after many years of preparatory work, the Fertő-Hanság National Park Directorate has definitively committed itself to the rehabilitation of the dry and filled tributary system of the Erebe Islands.
The Erebe Islands are part of the Pannonhalmi Landscape Protection Area and the Natura2000 network of the European Union. It is still one of the parts of the Hungarian section of the Danube where, until recently, the river could freely shape the islands, washing away some of them and rebuilding them elsewhere.
In the protective “shadow” of the islands, rich aquatic communities have formed in the last centuries, with aquatic invertebrates (e.g. mayflies, various dragonflies), fish (e.g. zingel, European bitterling), amphibians (e.g. northern crested newt, edible frog, European tree frog), reptiles (e.g. grass nake), with birds (e.g. kingfisher, sand martin, reed songbirds, white-tailed eagle, black kite), with mammals (e.g. otter, many species of bats, Eurasian water shrew).
It is important to mention that in the main bed of the Danube, the waves generated by the continuous boat traffic throw thousands of invertebrates and smaller fish onto the dry shore, destroying them to a large extent. Thus, habitats that are free from ship traffic and mitigate their effects, such as the Erebe Islands, play a key role in the survival of the Danube’s aquatic communities.
However, as a result of the fundamentally flawed Danube water management efforts of the past decades, the unfavorable processes that can be found everywhere in the Danube floodplain areas from Szigetköz to Gemenc and Béda-Karapancsa also started and accelerated in the tributary system of the Erebe Islands. In particular, it is about the fact that the power plants on the German and Austrian sections of the Danube, the Bős barrage, and submerged dams built in order to replenish the water of the tributaries of Szigetköz form an obstacle in the way of the river’s natural gravel sediment.
Since the river in the lower sections is thus unable to replace the rolled gravel sediment carried on from there by the water flow, the main riverbed has continuously deepened and deepens to such an extent that water only rarely enters the tributaries (only once every few years in case of higher water levels). The vicious circle began. Since the Danube river water does not regularly enter the tributaries, the gravel sediment accumulated there in previous decades remains there. From the deepening main riverbed of the Danube, water is then even less able to enter the tributaries (due to the continuous increase in the bed level difference between the tributaries and the main riverbed). As a result, the tributaries dry up and the islands lose their “island” character.
The Fertő-Hanság National Park Directorate started its efforts to rehabilitate the tributary system of the Erebe Islands nearly 10 years ago, mostly using European Union funds. Within the framework of the DPT1-005-2.3 – DANUBEparksCONNECTED project, the researches establishing the rehabilitation were completed by 2018, as well as a study plan, which was the basis for our Directorate to submit a LIFE project to implement its contents.
Our efforts were crowned with success. The tender consortium led by the Austrian Donau-Auen, whose members include a total of 15 organizations managing protected areas in eight countries, including our Directorate, was able to start the implementation of the LIFE WILDisland project in 2022. In the framework of this project, our Directorate prepared the necessary water rights establishment plans for the wetland reconstruction of the tributary system of the Erebe Islands in 2023. In the same year, we obtained the necessary official permits, and after the conclusion of a successful public procurement procedure, the actual wetland reconstruction works could begin in December 2023 in the tributaries filled in previous years, which we hope will be completed in 2024.
During these reconstruction works, among other things, we excavate about 40,000 cubic meters of gravel sediment from the tributaries and return it to the main riverbed. As a result, the bed level of the tributaries is brought closer to the level of the Danube main riverbed, and the amount of gravel returned there somewhat increases the amount of rolled gravel sediment in the main bed, slightly delaying its further deepening.
In addition, by dismantling of the water work in Vöröskő over a width of about 20 meters, we will also remove a specific physical obstacle from the water’s path, so it will have a greater chance of entering the Nagy-Erebe branch even during wet periods.
In the framework of the project, we carried out the removal of non-native, invasive woody plants such as boksz elder, green ash, silver maple, etc. survey in 2023 in a total area of approximately 105 hectars, and after obtaining the necessary permits, we will begin to reduce them. These works are expected to be completed by the end of the project, in the summer of 2027. We also want to clean the islands from the garbage that has arrived there in the past decades.
By the spring of 2025, we would like to set up interactive information points with resting places for visitors in the area of the islands at the border of Gönyű and Nagyszentjános. At these points, we would like to process the natural, historical (e.g. Danube limes) and cultural historical values of the Erebe Islands area.
We hope that our project will win the support of both the local population and those coming to the region from further afield.
Fersch Attila
Fertő-Hanság National Park Directorate
