Danube River Research and Management in Slovakia and Austria

The aims are to establish joint research facilities, to enhance knowledge transfer and to develop innovative monitoring and modelling tools in the SK-AT border region. By enhancing knowledge transfer and capacity building between research bodies and universities, the project will lead to an improved cooperation and exchange of expertise between research and innovation actors using newly constructed and upgraded research infrastructures (RI). New monitoring stations as well as innovative monitoring techniques (e.g. operative boat) and modelling tools concerning hydrodynamics, sediment transport, morphodynamics, ecological parameters and remote sensing technologies in river and wetland science will lead to high quality and comparable data derived at the Danube River in the project reaches (cross border region and adjacent reaches). A guidance document of monitoring and modelling tools will be published and available for the target groups. In SK (VÚVH) the hydraulic engineering laboratory (discharge 1,5 m³/s) will be modernized and upgraded according to the state of the art together with laboratory of geoinformatics and advanced river remote sensing (ILE SAS). In AT a hydraulic engineering laboratory will be constructed with 10 m³/s free flowing discharge. By using these RIs, the scientific basis for improving the Danube river management between Vienna and Bratislava will be developed, being available for target groups working in navigation, flood risk management, ecology, hydropower and drinking water supply. Furthermore, a close exchange of undergraduate and doctoral students and teachers between BOKU, VUVH and ILE SAS will be initiated and the research facilities will be jointly used for common teaching and research activities, also beyond the lifetime of the project.