“National parks should first and foremost serve the general cultural and especially scientific enrichment of the people. They are indeed cultural and above all scientific institutions – natural museums and laboratories,” writes in the preface to the edition “Plitvice Lakes National Park” from 1958 its editor Josip Šafar.
The natural laboratory of the Plitvice Lakes attracted scientists for a whole century before these words were written and before the Plitvice Lakes were declared a national park, so today we mark almost 170 years of research into the aquatic ecosystem of Plitvice Lakes. From the first measurements of depths in 1850, to Ivo Pevalek’s research in the 1920s and 1930s and multidisciplinary research in the 1950s, 1970s and 1980s, to the present day, scientists have never not lost interest in studying the Plitvice Lakes. It is certain that this specific area and its outstanding value will never cease to be an object of curiosity for scientists and researchers, a real natural museum and laboratory, so there is no doubt that we can look forward to celebrating plenty more jubilees of scientific and research work in the future.
In order to remember the most important years and events in the long history of research into the aquatic ecosystem of Plitvice Lakes, we summarised them in the form of a poster.
Poster:170 years of researching the aquatic ecosystem of the Plitvice Lakes National Park
