Natural History of the Danube Region

Nature and humans have met and interacted in the Danube Region for millennia, changing its plant and animal communities. Fishing is among the oldest demonstrable human intervention in the river. For centuries, local habitat alteration in the wake of riverbank fixation or large-scale changes due to deforestation in the catchment have taken place. In the last 200 years the socio-natural system underwent fundamental anthropogenic changes by systematic river channelization for navigation or for flood protection, and by hydropower production and pollution. In-depth-knowledge of the long-term development of the Danube and Danube Region is indispensable as past events created a variety of long-term legacies. To devise sustainable policies for the future, policy makers and administratives need sound information on species, habitats and ecosystems and about their distribution in space and time. The Danube: Future Knowledge Base was developed to support integrating transnational, basin-wide research to address this need.