Waterway Danube

Waterway Danube

Environmental friendliness and efficiency make inland navigation an attractive transport mode. The intensified use of waterways is in line with the objectives of European transport and environmental policies. Of course, the ace up CENTROPE’s sleeve is the Danube.

Charting the course of the Danube on a map reveals the potential of this waterway referred to as “Corridor VII” in EU and related documents. While congested traffic is increasingly the norm on many motorways and European forwarders bemoan continually rising costs, there exist natural alternatives to lorry transport: it is with good reason that traffic experts consider waterways the “better road”.

E.g. via the Marco Polo Programme, the European Commission finances initiatives aimed at shifting traffic from road to rail and waterways. This year’s annual conference on 5 and 6 October will specifically focus on the Danube, and not only because the event will take place in Vienna. Over 200 persons will participate; for more detailed information on programme and registration, go to the website.

CENTROPE on the Danube

For the CENTROPE region, this potential can be tapped via the Danube ports in Ybbs, Krems, Korneuburg, Vienna, Bratislava and Győr-Gőnyű as inter-modal cargo transhipment hubs. Approx. 50% of goods transport on the Danube is generated with ores, scrap metal and petroleum products; agricultural and silvicultural produce is likewise strongly on the rise. Since the completion of its latest enlargement phase, the Port of Vienna alone boasts an annual cargo handling capacity of approx. 400,000 container units. Further information about the ports along the Danube can be found here.

Water has no borders?

The Danube waterway is certainly not borderless: after all, the Danube flows through ten countries and along some stretches actually marks national borders; as a result, more than just one national administration assumes navigation competencies along certain sections of the river. Although the tasks of the individual waterway administrations are largely the same across the board, their practical implementation is sometimes less than homogeneous. Better communication and transnational fine-tuning of action plans is to be safeguarded by the NEWADA project, which is co-financed by the EU South East Europe Programme and for the first time unites all waterway administrations downriver of Austria. In the long run and even after expiry of NEWADA, it is above all the objective of more systematic communications technology use in logistics that may help to tap the potentials of the Danube waterway with greater effectiveness.

Environmental protection despite commercial utilisation

While the commercial and economic utilisation of rivers used to massively impair the habitats of their extremely varied flora and fauna, navigation has begun in recent years to pay greater attention to ecological criteria. A particularly apt example of this approach is provided by the “Integrated River Engineering Project on the Danube East of Vienna”. This initiative on the one hand improves the river’s navigational practicability and thus the economic viability of cargo transport by water. On the other hand, the groundwater level is to be sustainably stabilised as well. Waterway linkage and riverbank renaturation will ensure that the Danube can continue to flow freely through the Danube Floodplains National Park between Vienna and Bratislava, and hence through the European Region CENTROPE.

Since the “Integrated River Engineering Project” entails improvements for both navigation and the environment, it creates a true win-win situation. It is planned to conclude the environmental impact assessment before the end of 2010; in case of a positive conclusion of the procedure, the related works will extend over a period of up to ten years.