Victoria Chraïbi Student Corner Saline Systems in Austria

e drove along a small dirt road, unique systems exist both in Nebraska and as a UNESCO Cultural Heritage Site hedged in by reeds on one side Austria, we are excited for the opportunity as well as a Bird Heritage Site, and its Wand grapevines on the other. In a to visit and research how these two management must serve a delicate balance fallow field, small biplanes refueled and countries’ systems compare. We recently between these two. took off, flying precariously low to the began our study by visiting Austria’s We met with Alois Lang, who has vineyards. Every few seconds, we heard saline systems, and would like to share worked at the park since its inception in the Pop! Pop! Pop! of gunshots. “Don’t what we have learned so far. For our 1983, and has encyclopedic knowledge worry, those aren’t real guns,” Lucas, discussion, we focus on Williams’ (2002) of the physical and natural characteristics the park intern, reassured us, “it is an prediction of two different threats related of the area and the intricacies of its automated sound machine to scare away to salt and aquatic systems in the coming conservation. He explained that the strong the birds.” The birds refer to the 340+ decades: the loss of naturally saline lakes, winds mixing the lake also push sand species that migrate through this small and the anthropogenic salinization of out of the lake onto the eastern shore, region in western Austria every year on freshwater lakes. We visited examples of providing the sandy soil that the vineyards their way to Africa. Unfortunately, the both situations in Austria: Neusiedler See covet. This soil gradates into a more bird migration corresponds with the grape and Hallstättersee. saline soil in the Seewinkel region, which harvest, so a miniature war of sound and is also dotted by transient, groundwater- wind replays itself every autumn. After Neusiedler See: fed saline ponds, and finally into black all, the birds and the grapes are both here A Threatened Saline Lake soil suitable for other types of agriculture. for the same reasons: salt and water. First, we visited the National Park of Until 70 years ago, the land was mainly I am currently abroad in Austria Neusiedler See-Seewinkel to learn about used for pasturing cattle, haying, and with members of the NSF-IGERT group imperiled saline water bodies. Neusiedler harvesting reed for house thatching. The from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln See hosts one large (315 km2), very vineyards arrived in the 1960s and ’70s, to study the resilience and adaptive shallow (1.8 m max. depth) alkaline lake, changing the landscape. management of stressed watersheds. I am the namesake of the region. Fed only by Next, we met with Prof. Alois leading a small discussion group focusing precipitation and continually mixed by Herzig, the former director of the on the resilience and management of wind, the lake hosts one of the largest park and biological station, and Harry, saline systems. Several of us study saline reed belts in Europe (Figure 1). This who is in charge of park education. systems in Nebraska. Because these feature has earned the area designations They animatedly discussed the park’s

Figure 1. The second-largest reed belt in Europe fringes Neusiedler See.

Winter 2013 / LAKELINE 47 management successes and challenges. whole community for the ecotourism Hallstättersee: Rather than owning land, the park it brings, which supports stable jobs so A Threatened Freshwater Lake annually rents the land and the right to young people can afford to stay in the Second, we visited the manage it from the local landowners. community. Salzkammergut region in the western In this way, the park is composed of The national park faces challenges Alps of Austria to learn about freshwater 10,000 hectares of little islands of land ahead. The first is money. The current lakes exposed to saline influences. The surrounded by agriculture and linked budget is based on a contract between Salzkammergut, or “salt kingdom,” is together by plots that have gone fallow as the regional and national governments, where salt has been mined for thousands part of a government-subsidized program. each paying 50 percent of a budget upon of years, providing the region with The management of the land depends which the governments decide every economic stability and a vital natural entirely upon the decisions of the 28 year. The budget for 2014 is uncertain resource. The region is also characterized national park staff; they are not given as both governments consider defunding by several freshwater lakes; we visited the goals by government entities such as both the national park and the fallow land lake Hallstättersee (area = 8.6 km2; mean bird population numbers or hectares subsidy. Should the park be unable to pay depth = 12.5 m) and its small associated conserved. If they notice something its rent to landowners – which already town of Hallstatt. The town has about that works, they continue to do it. For requires 60 percent of the budget – the 1,000 permanent inhabitants. Every example, they noticed that cattle-grazed landowners may choose to redevelop the morning, two fishermen cruise the lake land provided more bird habitat than land. The budget restrictions also leave with nets and return with the catch of mowed land or unmanaged land, so they only 3 percent for monitoring and 2.5 the day for the locals and restaurants to paid to borrow traditional grey cattle from percent for education. The park does not prepare for dinner. Swans were introduced southern Austria and Hungary. In this receive revenue from tourism, so its land to the lake to please Empress Elisabeth way, they reintroduced a traditional land management, tourism advertising, and when she would vacation here; today they use practice in the region that also serves monitoring data rely solely on personal cruise the lake looking for handouts from an ecological function. agreements it has made with local the peasant tourists. The national park has enjoyed other landowners, industries, and university We ascended the nearby mountain successes in addition to recovering researchers in Vienna. to visit the local salt mine (Figure 2). grasslands. The lake was once used as an Ecologically, the main challenge is Hallstatt is thought to be the oldest salt eel fishery, introducing an exotic species now water retention. Water management mine in the world, established about 7,000 that decimated the local fish population. in the area focuses on maintaining stable years ago. Neolithic people mined the salt In order to become a national park, the lake levels and avoiding floods. Water to preserve meat; this area became one of government required this industry be is also free and unlimited, so sloppy the first known human settlements, and its stopped, helping to recover the lake’s water use is common. This inefficient archaeological importance is recognized natural species assemblage. consumption lowers the water table so by an era of time named after it (Hallstatt They also count successes within much that the smaller Seewinkel saline Era 800-400 BC). the community of Neusiedler See. The ponds, which naturally tend to dry up in The mine has functioned national park serves as a role model for the summer, are drying up permanently continuously through the millennia. sustainable land use, and through the because the groundwater that feeds them The mining techniques adapted with years they have witnessed a change in is now too deep. The park has lost 60 technology, and today the salt is mined the way local residents value and use ponds in this way, and now focuses on by being dissolved into water under their land. Much of the land is now educating the public on the importance of pressure. The salt is then transported as rented to the park or allowed to go fallow saving the remaining 40 ponds in its area. brine through pipes 40 km to the town of because it is of economic value to the Ebensee, where it is placed in evaporative

Figure 2. The view of Lake Halstättersee from the salt mine mountain.

48 Winter 2013 / LAKELINE pools to extract the salt. The system is so fauna. Even though one brine spill was References efficient that the mine only employs 28 much larger than the other, the lake took Williams, W.D. 2002. Environmental workers total. Because of the loss of jobs the same amount of time to recover from threats to salt lakes and the likely status in the mining industry, young people have the shock by flushing the salt out of its of inland saline ecosystems in 2025. left town for opportunities elsewhere; basin (three years, or six times its water Environ Conserv 29(2): 154-167. the population has shrunk by half, and residence time). As far as we can tell Ficker, H., H. Gassney, D. Achleitnu and many of the houses have become rental culturally and economically, though the R. Schabettsberger. 2011. Ectogenic properties for tourists. lake is beautiful, here salt is king. The meromixis of Lake Hallstattersee, Hallstättersee receives wastewater lake is lucky that it has the natural ability Austria induced by waste water discharges from the mine through one of to respond rather quickly to the occasional intrusions from salt mining. Water Air its tributaries. On two occasions in the “oops” of large brine spills, because the Soil Pollut 218: 109-120. last few decades, the brine pipes burst, salt isn’t going anywhere soon. releasing large amounts of brine into the Many of our group members were lake. News reports suggested that the struck by how similar the Neusiedler See Victoria Chraïbi is a Ph.D. brine sank to the bottom immediately and region was to the Nebraska Sandhills in student at the University therefore had no impact on the lake; we appearance and ecological function, and of Nebraska-Lincoln in were interested in the effects of sudden how the Salzkammergut compared to earth and atmospheric intense additions salt on the benthic some of our other study sites. We look science, with emphases in ecosystem. Ficker and others (2011) found forward to returning home to Nebraska paleolimnology and science that the brine spills caused ectogenic and to continue our ongoing study on how education. She is a member meromixis (the lake stops mixing during saline systems in Austria and Nebraska of the NSF-IGERT program turnover periods) and hypoxia (low or no compare in their ecological and social on the resilience and oxygen) in the deeper regions of the lake resilience and management. adaptive management of stressed watersheds. She that showed temporary die-off of benthic holds an M.S. in water resources science from the University of Minnesota Duluth and a B.A. in biology from Hanover College. c

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