For three years, from 2019 to 2022, the Isel in East Tyrol (district of Lienz) was the focus of extensive surveys for a ‘ River Development and Risk Management Concept’, or GE-RM for short. It was therefore also part of IRIS, a LIFE project co-funded by the EU, which aims to combine the flood safety of people and the ecological functionality of the river.

The results of the IRIS project have now been incorporated into a new 300-page book about the Isel. It portrays the last glacial river in the Eastern Alps that is not utilised by power plants from various specialist perspectives and documents the knowledge of 40 authors on geology and morphology, water balance, climate and glaciers, the flora and fauna, the history of human use, the diversity of relationships between humans and the river as well as strategies for securing the habitat and protecting the ecosystems.

Susanna and Andreas Muhar from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences have compiled this knowledge with a great deal of expertise and commitment. The research couple, supported by experts from the East Tyrolean environmental office Revital, were the driving force behind a book project with an almost encyclopaedic character.

On 20 November 2024, they were able to present their work to a broad public in the packed Bildungshaus Osttirol and were pleased to receive a great deal of interest and approval from politicians and the tourism industry, as could be gleaned from the words of Lienz Mayor Elisabeth Blanik, Tyrol’s Provincial Councillor for Nature Conservation René Zumtobel and Tourism Association Chairman Franz Theurl.

Tyrolean environmental lawyer Johannes Kostenzer’s vision for the future, declaring the coming year 2025 to be the ‘Year of the Isel’, was well received by the expert audience. – Good prospects and a valuable impetus for the further implementation of the ‘Isel River Development and Risk Management Concept’.