The Water Framework Directive: Can more information be extracted from groundwater data? A case study of Seewinkel,Burgenland, eastern Austria

Water protection is one of the most important goals in environmental protection. The Clean Water Act in the USA and the Water Framework Directive (WFD) in Europe are the legal frameworks to facilitate the achievement of this goal. The question is raised of whether more information can be extracted from WFD-related groundwater data. To answer it, a methodology has been developed that is easy to use and could be implemented into official practice. A case study is presented in which the groundwater data of a sodic area in Austria (Seewinkel) is assessed. Eighteen parameters in groundwater sampled from 23 wells (1991–2011) were analyzed. With basic statistics, trend-, cluster-, Wilks’ λ and spatial sampling density analysis, local phosphorus and boron phenomena were described, along with the determining role of sulphate, groundwater flow, and the oxygen gradient in the area. As a final step, the spatial sampling density was determined. Regarding the current set of parameters, all the sampling sites are necessary and only in the case of certain parameters (Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺, K⁺, NO₃ ^?, pH) could one sampling site be abandoned. The methodology applied brings a new perspective to exploring groundwater data collected according to the requirements of the WFD.     

Life in the sublittoral zone of long-lived Lake Pannon: paleontological analysis of the Upper Miocene Szák Formation,Hungary

Life and depositional environments in the sublittoral zone of Lake Pannon, a large, brackish Paratethyan lake from the Late Miocene, were reconstructed from fossils and facies of the Szák Formation. This formation is exposed in several, roughly coeval (9.4–8.9 Ma) outcrops, located along strike of the paleo-shelf-break in northwestern Hungary. The silty argillaceous marl of the formation was deposited below storm wave base, at 20–30 to 80–90 m water depth. The abundance of benthic organisms indicates that the bottom water was usually well oxygenated. Interstitial dysoxia, however, may have occurred immediately below the sediment–water interface, as evidenced by occasional preservation of trace fossils such as Diplocraterion. The fauna comprised endemic mollusks, including brackish cockles of the subfamily Lymnocardiinae, dreissenid mussels (Congeria), and highly adapted, uniquely large-sized deep-water pulmonate snails (planorbids and lymnaeids). Ostracods were dominated by endemic species and, in some cases, endemic genera of candonids, leptocytherids, cypridids, and loxoconchids. Fish remnants include a sciaenid otolith and the oldest skeletal occurrence of Perca in Europe. The phytoplankton comprised exclusively endemic coccolithophorids, mostly endemic dinoflagellates (prevailingly Spiniferites), and cosmopolitan green algae. The Late Miocene fauna and flora of Lake Pannon were in many ways similar to the modern Caspian biota, and in particular cases can be regarded as its precursor.     

Biogeographical drivers of ragweed pollen concentrations in Europe

Theoretical and Applied Climatology - The drivers of spatial variation in ragweed pollen concentrations, contributing to severe allergic rhinitis and asthma, are poorly quantified. We analysed the...     

Clinoforms as paleogeographic tools: Development of the Danube catchment above the deep Paratethyan basins in Central and Southeast Europe

The Miocene marine basins of Central and Southeast Europe, once comprising the Paratethys Sea, were gradually filled with sediments during the Neogene and turned to be the catchment area of the proto-Danube and finally that of the modern Danube. Seismic data from various parts of the large Danube catchment area show that these several hundred meter deep basins were filled by lateral accretion of river-transported sediments, appearing as shelf edge scale clinoform sets in seismic profiles. The direction of shelf edge progradation is NW to SE (N to S, W to E) in each basin, except for the Dacian basin where NE to SW direction prevails. The age of the clinoform sets is generally younging downstream: 19–18 Ma in the North Alpine Foreland basin, 14–13 Ma in the Vienna basin, 10–9 Ma in the Danube (Kisalföld) basin, 8.6–4 Ma in the Central Pannonian basin (Alföld), ?9–5 Ma in the Dacian basin, and 6–0 Ma in the Euxinian (Black Sea) basin. In spite of this geographical and temporal pattern, only the Danube (Kisalföld) and the western and central part of the Central Pannonian basin were filled by the proto-Danube shelf accretion. Formation of the Danube, as a longitudinal river of the Alpine foreland that gradually elongated to the east and followed the retreating shoreline of the Paratethys, most probably took place at the beginning of the Late Miocene, ca. 11 Ma ago, thus the Early and Middle Miocene shelf advance in the North Alpine Foreland and Vienna basins, respectively, cannot be attributed to a „paleo-Danube”. The clinoform systems of the Dacian basin are coeval with those of the upstream Central Pannonian basin, indicating that by the time the Danube sedimentary system reached the Dacian basin, it was already a shallow basin. The vast clinoforms of the northwestern Euxinian shelf also significantly overlap in age with the Pannonian basin ones; only the <4 Ma part of the shelf accretion can be attributed to the Danube sensu stricto.