Thursday 31st July 2025
5.30pm-7pm
This will be an informal recording session focusing on the water plants of the Alte Donau. If you would like to join us on the swim, please write to info@hybridwaters.net.
Tuesday 12th August 2025
2.30pm-4pm
Join us for a gentle afternoon picnic and swim in the Alte Donau, exploring the landscape changes above and below the water over the past 200 years. We will share archival documents and stories of bathing in the Old Danube, and search for the remnants of these histories held with the sediments at the bottom. All are welcome!
Meeting point: Romawiese (Dragonerhäufel)
Please note this will be an informal group talk and a swim - please bring bathing gear and maybe a snack!
Once the main arm of the Danube, the Alte Donau is now a recreational lake for boating, swimming and fishing whose ecological balance is meticulously maintained by a cascade of daily technical measures implemented by the city of Vienna. Where there was once a flowing river, now an inflow pipe brings fresh water from the Neue Donau and an outflow empties it into the Mühlwasser. Where the river once sustained a flow of nutrients, now a regime of 'mowing' prevents nutrient overloading. Once a river, now an urban pond, the Alte Donau sustains an intensively urban yet increasingly fragile biotope.
Contact: info@hybridwaters.net