Navigation on the Danube

Living river or transport corridor?

Current plans for developing navigation on the Danube disregard the river's many other uses and benefits. Navigation has been and always will be one of the main human uses of the Danube River and its many tributaries, but it is not the only one.

Some types of navigation vessels, for example kayaks, small fishing craft and tourist boats, are environmentally suited to the dynamic conditions of the Danube, causing no to minimal side effects.Large vessels, however, can pose a problem if they require changing or upsetting the river's natural conditions - for example, deepening or straightening the river.

A new report, the Danube River Basin Analysis 2004, developed by the Vienna-based 'International Convention for the Protection of the Danube River' (ICPDR) and 13 Danube countries, revealed in March 2005 that navigation has regrettably been one of the biggest causes of environmental degradation on the Danube, if not the biggest, mainly from activities that deepened, dammed or straightened the river.

The report further warns that a number of future navigation projects could cause further environmental damage to the Danube, especially the Danube's last free-flowing (non-dammed) sections. This warning was first publicly announced in January 2002 by WWF with its own report, "Waterway Transport on Europe's Lifeline, the Danube", which received global media attention.

Further damage to the river's natural areas could have farreaching impacts, including intensifying flooding -- which has already been increasing in recent years in frequency and severity -- and removing the river's natural ability to remove pollution.

The Danube must remain a living river, and not be transformed into a transport corridor.