Europaschutzgebiet Auwälder am Unteren Inn

The Inn is the Alpine river with the most water. The Romans called it "Aenus", the "foaming one", because of its high flow velocity. The widely ramified river system of the Inn on the Bavarian-Upper Austrian border has disappeared due to regulation and flood protection. However, the consequences of later power station construction have created completely new habitats and ecosystems.

The reservoirs of the power plants in the lower reaches of the Inn have raised the water level and reduced the speed of the river. As the Inn from the Alps carries a lot of fine sediment, known as "glacier milk", especially in the summer months, the water usually remains cloudy. At the same time, the suspended matter settled in the dammed areas and silt banks gradually grew to the surface. Together with the accompanying alluvial forests, the border river between Bavaria and Upper Austria has thus developed into an ideal habitat for an incredible variety of water birds, which discovered and colonised this biotope shortly after its creation. More than 300 different bird species are observed here throughout the year. Around half of them also breed on the Lower Inn, while others are only seasonal visitors or passing through. This fact alone led to both Upper Austria and Bavaria establishing nature reserves in the floodplains of the Inn back in the 1970s. Today, this bird paradise has the status of a European nature reserve. Anyone travelling along the river on the Inn cycle path, for example, will always find good places to observe birds on and in the water: Water birds such as the night heron, the common tern and the kingfisher have conquered this habitat, as have the eagle owl, the black woodpecker and the golden plover. But aquatic mammals such as otters and beavers and rare fish such as the Huchen can also be found in the Lower Inn.