Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
The aim of this study was to point out the change of land use and land
cover in the Seewinkel during the last 250 years. Further aims were to highlight
changes in agricultural system and to illustrate processes of intensification and
industrialisation.
9.2 Regional Settings
The study area, the so-called “Seewinkel” is a small part of the federal state
Burgenland (Austria) situated east of the eastern shore of Lake Neusiedl. In the
south and east it builds up the border to Hungary and enters the so-called “Waasen”
(Hungarian: Hanság), a former large-scale fen area. The area can be mainly assigned
to four types of cultural landscapes: (1) Extra-alpine basins and valley floors with
dominant crop farming; (2) Pannonian arable - viticulture complex; (3) Flatlands
and soft slopes with dominant viticulture and (4) Extended extra-alpine xeric grass-
land and pasture landscapes (Wrbka et al., 2002). The partly swampy area contains
more than 40 temporary shallow salty lakes and borders to the most western salt
lake in Europe (Berger, Fally, & Lunzer, 1992). It is the absolute lowest (on average
only 117 m above sea level) and one of the driest (annual precipitation <600 mm/a -
ZAMG 2002) parts of Austria and has been colonised since the Neolithic period
(Löffler, 1982). Gravel dominates the bedrock (Haeusler, 2006; Löffler, 1982). The
main soil types are different kinds of tschernosem and salt-influenced soil types like
solonetz or solontschak (Nestroy, 2005; Löffler, 1982). In former times the grassy
steppe around these lakes allowed an extensive stock-breeding (especially cattle
and horses). Today's use of these particular areas is mostly dedicated to small-scale
agriculture or tourism.
Generally this former wooded steppe has been transformed through millennia
of agricultural use into a more or less steppic area without natural forests and was
especially modified during the last 250 years of cultivation.
Particularly valuable for nature conservation are (1) the seasonally flooded area
in front of the lake, (2) the reed belt, (3) the small shallow lakes and (4) dif-
ferent types of extensively used meadows. Most of the shallow lakes dry out in
summer to salty swamps or desert-like areas covered by a salt crust. The physico-
chemical secret of these rain-determined ecosystems lies in the sealing function of
the sodium salt in the substrate. This system only works when the substrate is wet
from a high groundwater level. When the groundwater level declines, the sodium
salt substrate dries out and the water impermeable horizon becomes crumbly and
permeable.
The protected landscape around Lake Neusiedl is the largest Ramsar site in
Austria with 44.229 ha (Umweltbundesamt, 2004). In 1993 parts of the Seewinkel
and the nature protection areas of Lake Neusiedl were declared together with
the Hungarian part Fertö-Hanság (National Park since 1991) as a trans-boundary
National Park and in 2001 as World Natural Heritage (Nationalpark Neusiedlersee-
Seewinkel, 2008).
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