Improving the cross-border visitor infrastructure and assessing visitor influence in Thayatal-Podyjí National Parks

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The two national park administrations Thayatal and Podyjí have been protecting the common cross-border natural heritage directly on the border between Austria and the Czech Republic for more than 20 years. The multifaceted range of tasks of a national park requires the two administrations to preserve or promote the habitat and unique biodiversity on the one hand, while on the other hand to make this habitat accessible to a reasonable extent for visitors. In recent years, the two smallest national parks in both countries are constantly encountering increasing visitor numbers and increasing interest in nature experiences. This project addresses the challenge of steering these visitor flows in order to continue to ensure an efficient nature conservation in line with the core task of the national parks. The aim is to provide visitors from both countries with intensive natural experiences in the two national parks and thus to create an awareness of the protection value of this special natural area. This involves personal encounters of visitors from both countries, shared nature experiences, communication and exchange. In order to achieve this goal even better, the existing visitor infrastructure and visitor guidance of the two national parks will be expanded and upgraded. At the same time, scientific decision-making frameworks are collected to evaluate how the demands of the ever-increasing number of visitors in a way compatible with the natural space can be met in the future and the influence of the disturbance by visitors on the natural space and its functions in the regional and supra-regional context. As this is a cross-border nature reserve, which visitors from both countries visit to search for intense nature experiences, cooperation and communication between all project partners is essential. The challenges posed by the increasing number of visitors in the cross-border natural area can only be tackled efficiently and sustainably by the close cooperation and effort from both countries. The measures to expand the visitor infrastructure and the scientific studies in the border region are only useful if they are carried out cross-border. Unique to this project is that the visitor infrastructure is upgraded based on scientific decision-making, which takes into account the perspectives and needs of the fauna and flora of this natural area, on the other hand, the different expectations and needs of visitors from both countries. As a result, a uniform visitor management can be implemented in both national park administrations, which is tailor-made for the cross-border audience and the natural space itself.

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