Water engineering projects take place in areas that are particularly sensitive to the ecological changes. via donau takes its stewardship of the water eco-systems very seriously and places great emphasis on executing all measures affecting waters in a manner that impacts the environment as little as possible.

Our highly committed ecosystem restoration team is responsible for the oversight and monitoring of the water engineering projects and secures the ecological competence of the Waterway Management Team.

Projects relating to ecology and protection of biotopes, the preparation of Environmental Impact Statements and ecological project control are the central tasks. Furthermore, the team contributes ecological expertise to the Integrated River Engineering Project to the East of Vienna, thus ensuring the crucial linkage of navigation interests with the nature protection aims of the National Park Donau-Auen.

An Environmental Impact Statements for the restoration of the flood protection dams or renaturalisation project on the March are only some of the current projects of the Ecosystem Restoration Division. Under the EU LIFE Programmes, via donau has been charged with several projects to improve and preserve the Danube habitat. The LIFE Nature Project Wachau will create new gravel islands that will soon serve as breeding and winter habitat to many types of birds, and many of the silted-up old arms of the Danube will be connected to the river again. In the embankment renaturalisation project at Hainburg, embankment securing structures will be removed to give the Danube more space to flow again.

via donau is part of the international protection efforts in cross-border projects such as NATURA 2000 and the RAMSAR areas of the Danube, March and Thaya including their flooding zones. A current example is the INTERREG March project.