Speleological Institute

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The Speleological Institute , today the Department of Water Management in Karst Areas of the Federal Environment Agency , was founded in 1922 by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry .

History and tasks

The Institute was not intended as a purely scientific nor as a purely public entity, but the whole field of caving, namely theoretical and practical caving should cover and the cave Economics, the Institute for all three members of the caving both a research served as a training institute . From 1929 Georg Kyrle , founder of the Vienna Speleological School, was the director of the institute.

For teaching, the Speleological Institute had all the necessary technical equipment for field work as well as in the laboratory, whereby emphasis was placed on standardization in order to achieve approximately equivalent handling and thus the most accurate results possible. In addition, a teaching and display collection as well as a library and an archive were created.

The knowledge gained was summarized in cave economics, which was divided into a negative, preventive and a positive, constructive part. As a preventive measure, efforts were made to combat the advancing karst formation, the pollution of the karst waters, avert catastrophic damage caused by karst water movements and to preserve the caves and their surroundings. The building side consisted of an amelioration of the karst areas through re-irrigation and afforestation and in the economic use of the caves themselves or their contents (show caves, phosphate caves).

The Speleological Institute was set up as an independent federal institute for water management in karst areas with the Federal Act on Federal Water Management Institutions of November 1974 - on the occasion of the reorganization of the Austrian cave law . Since May 1, 1985, the Federal Agency has been run as the Department for Water Management in Karst Areas in the Federal Environment Agency Vienna.

Its purpose today is purely karst hydrological and karst hydrographic in nature, it no longer conducts basic research, but instead pursues measurements of environmentally relevant factors, for example. She also advises on issues relating to cave protection , which is anchored in Austrian nature conservation law and is responsible for the Federal Monuments Office .

Most of the historical holdings have been transferred to the Institute for Speleology of the Natural History Museum .

Publications of the Speleological Institute

  • Speleological yearbook
  • Speleological monographs
  • Speleological lectures
  • Natural and speleological guides through Austria
  • Cave postcards

See also

literature

  • Georg Kyrle : Purpose and aim of the Speleological Institute of the Federal Cave Commission. In: Speleological Yearbook. VII / IX year, volume 3/4, 1928.
  • Kurt Ehrenberg: On speleological research in Austria. In: Communications from the cave commission. Born 1953, No. 2, Vienna 1955, pp. 17–24.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hubert Trimmel: Karst and cave studies at the University of Vienna. In: The cave. 28, pp. 49-55 ( PDF on ZOBODAT ).
  2. ^ A b c Hubert Trimmel : On the career of the "Karst and cave science department" of the Natural History Museum in Vienna. In: The cave. 38, pp. 111-117 ( PDF on ZOBODAT ).