Ábrahám Levente: Biomonitoring a Dráva folyó magyarországi szakasza mentén 2000-2004 - Natura Somogyiensis 7. (Kaposvár, 2005)

Závodszky, Szabolcs: Hydroelectricity or national park? - Vízerőmű vagy nemzeti park?

6 NATURA SOMOGYIENSIS The planned hydroelectric plant and the Duna-Drava National Park The Drava section where Croatia plans to establish the Novo Virje hydroelectric power plant is between Zákány and Vízvár, where the river turns away from the state border, and flows entirely within the territory of the Republic of Croatia. The common river sections both directly above and below the planned power plant are the ones that make up Duna-Drava National Park. Fig. 1.: Location of the planned hydroelectric power station at Novo Virje, and Duna-Drava National Park Ecological corridor River Drava, as an ecological corridor and a continuous system of habitats would be fundamentally threatened by the creation of a hydroelectric plant. The damming of water for nearly 30 kilometres would entirely eliminate the diverse habitats found in this section, leaving what is an artificial reservoir resembling a uniform lake rather than a river, physically cutting in half and thus eliminating the ecological corridor character. Plant and animal populations and communities not respecting state borders will be torn apart and would then disappear due to the lack of suitable habitats. Connections between individuals of the populations would be disrupted, and whether the numbers of individuals in communities above and below the dammed area are suitable for maintaining viable populations is at least questionable. The example of the threatened bird, the little tern (Sterna albifrons) is illustrative enough: its breeding populations are found only in this Drava section including both Hungarian and Croatian territories. This bird breeds on gravel shoals with no vegetation at all, thus about 80% of its habitats would surely disappear as a result of damming, moreover those attempting to nest on the section below the power plant would be threatened by the enormous daily fluctuations of water level (1.5-2 m) caused by the operation order of the power station. But this is only one example out of many.