The Landscape:

Open oak forests were originally the dominant feature of the Seewinkel landscape, before inhabitancy by Neolithic peoples. Seewinkel’s landscape today is the result of human intervention over thousands of years:

• extensive clearing of the woodland
• Drainage
• mowing and grazing

After World War II, there were still large herds which were grazing on common pasturage. It’s this form of semi-extensive cattle farming, which has a long tradition: There were lots of domestic animals driven to the nearby pasturage and brought back in the evening. In drier seasons like spring, higher and drier parts of the land were used for grazing; as the water level declines, margins around the pools were also used. This regular use for grazing had a manifold effect on the vegetation- it was stimulating biodiversity and pushing back reed growth from pool shorelines and wet meadows…

Saltwater pools:

A very special feature about Lake Neusiedl is the saltwater pools. Those 45 are situated all over the lake region. In depth they vary between 60 cm depth and total dryness. It’s rainfall in autumn and winter to reborn them, while in summer they dry out totally. Some of them have been lost to human interference, while some of them silted in naturally.

We normally combine saltwater pools with big oceans, so what’s the matter with those tiny inland pools? Together with Hungary and Asia it’s the only place to provide us similar phenomena. Some of them form because of breeches in the embankment and in addition sediments are deposited, which leads to erosion and inland depression- the basis for pool formation. But some of them are even older than the lake; Ice age left its mark by creating basins in which the pools then formed.

The salt concentration level increases as the water level drops.

The salt which we can find most into the lake Neusiedl is sodium carbonate but there are also other types like sodium sulphate…. .

This is the reason why we can find plants which we normally can only see on the sea coast.

When the polls have a brown colour they are called, ”black water’’ pools, the colour comes from the earth on the ground. Not only the salt content, also the different temperatures between day and night make it hard to survive in the pools. Typically inhabitants of the salt pools are the pied avocet and the Kentish plover.

 Spögler Maximillian, Tobias Dorfmann