Experts warn! Austria is drying out more and more – Burgenland
The groundwater level is sinking, farmers lack water – and holidaymakers on Lake Neusiedl are left stranded.
Hardly any winter moisture, no precipitation and ever longer hot periods: Lake Neusiedl has been getting shallower and shallower for years. The groundwater level is sinking, the entire Seewinkel is guaranteed under the drought.
The problem children are mainly the salt lakes in the national park, says Christian Sailer from the main water management department to the ORF, “because they have just lost the connection to the groundwater body. It is natural that the pools dry out over the summer, but this connection should still be there.”
Reuse drainage ditches
In addition to the rainfall being too uniform, irrigation in agriculture has something to do with the low groundwater. Ditches were dug in the 1950s and 1960s to bring water from the region. At the moment, however, every drop has to be kept in the Seewinkel. The “interest group irrigation district Neusiedl am See” is looking for solutions and wants to use the ditches. “You can simply convert drainage ditches into irrigation ditches by installing barrages and by preventing backflow,” says Werner Falb-Meixner from the interest group.
Farmers need to rethink
The drought should also make it necessary to rethink agriculture. Crops that need less water will be grown more in the future. The winemaker Josef Umathum from Frauenkirchen pleads with the ORF for management in harmony with nature. He has planted biodiversity strips all around his vineyards, they cool the soil and slow down the wind, because wind extracts water from the soil. Rams also live here in the midst of the vineyards.
“It is very important to improve the water storage and nutrient capacity of the soil. In the past, this happened automatically, small farms gave rise to animals and thus cattle manure, which was composted and ultimately used as fertilizer and then as soil revitalization,” says the winemaker .