IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v14y2022i3p1829-d742714.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How Many Real Islands Have Existed along a Mid-Danube Section during the Past 250 Years?

Author

Listed:
  • Szilvia Ádám

    (World Wild Fund for Nature Hungary/Central and Eastern Europe, Álmos Vezér útja 69/A, 1141 Budapest, Hungary)

  • Ákos Malatinszky

    (Department of Nature Conservation and Landscape Management, Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Páter K. 1, 2100 Gödöllő, Hungary)

Abstract

The consequences of river regulation work and other human interventions from the past can still be followed and cause various effects on the Danube river, especially on the formation and state of the islands. We aimed to compile an inventory of the islands along the Hungarian Danube stretch between Vének (1797 rkm) and Budapest (1647 rkm) during the past 250 years, focusing on their landscape history. Real islands were defined as gravel bars that are permanently covered with pioneer woody vegetation, constantly surrounded by water (side-branch is not closed), and their surface remains unflooded at an average water level. We identified 123 real islands that existed on this 150 km long river stretch in the last centuries. These were real islands for a shorter or longer period between the 18th and the 21st century. A total of 66 of them existed at the same time about 200 years ago, i.e., before the large-scale water regulation works, while today this number is only 18, meaning that 73% of current potential Danube islands are at a stage of side-branch succession. Before the river regulation works, the natural successional changes of a real island occurred over hundreds of years, but today they happen rapidly. The formation of new islands became very limited compared to the past due to the lack of sediments and the altered river dynamics. In order to conserve this unique ecological corridor and green infrastructure element in the long run, and restore its damaged floodplain habitats, no more hard-tech interventions should be allowed in the fluvial system. These aspects need to be taken into consideration in decision-making processes with an integrated approach.

Suggested Citation

  • Szilvia Ádám & Ákos Malatinszky, 2022. "How Many Real Islands Have Existed along a Mid-Danube Section during the Past 250 Years?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-21, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:3:p:1829-:d:742714
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/3/1829/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/3/1829/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Henrich Grežo & Matej Močko & Martin Izsóff & Gréta Vrbičanová & František Petrovič & Jozef Straňák & Zlatica Muchová & Martina Slámová & Branislav Olah & Ivo Machar, 2020. "Flood Risk Assessment for the Long-Term Strategic Planning Considering the Placement of Industrial Parks in Slovakia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-20, May.
    2. Sabrina Wagner & Dietmar Moser & Franz Essl, 2020. "Urban Rivers as Dispersal Corridors: Which Factors Are Important for the Spread of Alien Woody Species along the Danube?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-11, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Petra Kinga Kézai & Mihály Dömötör & Dávid Fekete, 2022. "Sustainable and Innovative Cross-Border Regional Development with Focus on Tourism in the Danube Basin—A Case-Study of Szigetköz and Csallóköz (Žitný Ostrov)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-19, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ingo Kowarik & Leonie K. Fischer & Dave Kendal, 2020. "Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Urban Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-8, June.
    2. Jozefína Pokrývková & Ľuboš Jurík & Lenka Lackóová & Klaudia Halászová & Richard Hanzlík & Mohammad Ebrahim Banihabib, 2021. "The Urban Environment Impact of Climate Change Study and Proposal of the City Micro-Environment Improvement," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-15, April.
    3. Wen-Cheng Liu & Tien-Hsiang Hsieh & Hong-Ming Liu, 2021. "Flood Risk Assessment in Urban Areas of Southern Taiwan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-22, March.
    4. Lu Peng & Zhihui Li, 2021. "Ensemble Flood Risk Assessment in the Yangtze River Economic Belt under CMIP6 SSP-RCP Scenarios," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-17, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:3:p:1829-:d:742714. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.