LIFE water project wins “Neptun” award

The LIFE+ project, "Living space in the estuary stretch of the river Traisen" (LIFE07/NAT/A/000012) was the winner of the Grand Prize at this year’s Neptun Water Awards.

Established in 1999 by the Austrian Government, in partnership with the country’s main water federations, the Neptun Water Prize (Neptun Wasserpreis) is awarded every 2 years to selected water projects in different categories. In 2011, the award categories included: Water Protection, Water World, Water Communication and Water Creativity, as well as the special public's award for Water Perception. The Grand Prize is awarded to the best overall project.

This years Grand Prize winner is carrying out important conservation work on the River Traisen, one of the largest Danube tributar­ies in Lower Austria. The Traisen was heav­ily modified to facilitate the construction of the Altenwörth hydropower plant in 1976, and while it runs for 7.5 km through the Tullnfelder Donau-Auen Natura 2000 site, it lacks the aquatic and terrestrial habitats that are usually found on flood plains. The connection between the river and the surrounding riparian forest is therefore cut off, leading to an unfavourable con­servation status for the entire Natura 2000 site.

The LIFE+ project aims to create a new and dynamic river bed, to restore large-scale flooding zones and to restore and maintain the alluvial forest priority habitat type 91E0 with typical white willow woods. It also aims to link numerous floodplains to the new main river and create a free passage for fish and other water species.

Accepting the Grand Prize award, Helmut Wimmer, the LIFE+ project manager, indicated that the €3 000 prize money was being donated to the local association of "Rettet das Kind" (Save the Child).

Read more about the award in the Neptun Water Prize brochure (in German)
Further details on the project are available at: www.life-traisen.at