"Future Danube"- Event Land NÖ and ICC Water & Health

©Sophia Steinbacher | L-R: ICC Water & Health: Gerhard Lindner, Anna Schmid, Alexander Kirschner, Sophia Steinbacher, Katalin Demeter, Andreas Farnleitner; Land NÖ WA2 / Gewässeraufsicht NÖ: Martin Angelmaier, Martina Heckel, Günther Konheisner, Andrea Perschl, Markus Bauer, Robert Amon; Schifffahrtsaufsicht (Krems), Fritz Braunsberg

At a joint event on September 04, 2023, the first results of the successful cooperation of the project partners Department WA2, Province of Lower Austria, Gewässeraufsicht Lower Austria, ICC Water & Health and our Department of Water Quality and Health at the Karl Landsteiner University Krems within the project "FUTURE DANUBE - Prediction of future trends in health-related microbiological water quality of rivers in a rapidly changing world" were presented.

The focus was on the sampling series from October 2021 to September 2023 on the Lower Austrian Danube, which was carried out together with the Gewässeraufsicht. The analyzed hygienic-microbiological water quality serves on the one hand for the determination of the fecal pollution situation of the Danube and subsequently as a basis for the calibration of a model which will determine the impact of future scenarios i.e. climate change, population growth, changes in wastewater treatment on water quality and the risk of infection during bathing or drinking water production.

A special focus of the scenario analysis will be the inclusion of shipping and its possible increase in the next 10 - 30 years. The basis for this is a previously successfully prepared and published concept for the evaluation of the influence of shipping on the fecal pollution situation of the Danube in Lower Austria, as well as an already published model for the future microbiological-hygienic water quality of the Danube upstream of Vienna. The work done in the project met with extremely positive feedback and the cooperation was appreciated by all project partners, thus laying the foundation for future collaborations.