Academic literature on the topic 'The Danube waterway'

Sustainability of transport systems is a key issue in transport. The main question is whether high levels of road and railway transport in areas along navigable waterways is an effective solution for this issue. The Danube waterway is an example. Generally, it is not observed that traffic performance is not as high as on the Rhine. This paper deals with the revelation of the available capacity of this waterway based on approximation functions and their comparison with real transport performances. This methodology points to the level of use of waterways. The connection of this model with the production of fossil fuels creates a basis for a case study. The case study in this paper offers a possibility for a sustainable and environmentally friendly transition from road transport to inland water transport on the example of specific transport routes. The main contribution of this paper is a presentation of the application of sustainable models of use transport capacity to increase the share of environmentally friendly and sustainable inland water transport. The conclusion based on the case study and materials is that the available capacity of inland water transport on the Danube could support the transition of traffic performances to sustainable and environmentally friendly means of transport.

The Role of the Danube River in the Trans-European Waterway Network
 In the 20th century, the Danube Region was subject to numerous and far-reaching political transformations, which had a negative impact on the expansion of the Danube waterway transport, affected mainly by political, economical and military crises that took place in the 1990s. Nowadays, only 9% of all river cargo is shipped via the Danube River. The European Union makes an effort to increase this number up to 30%, and to ensure the river’s permanent inclusion in the Trans-European Transport Network, with an ongoing process of adjusting the Danube shipping law to the regulations applicable to other European rivers. Nonetheless, the implementation of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region has little effect on the transportation growth in the Danube Basin so far – due to insufficient support from the European Union, the Danubian countries’ unwillingness to carry out expensive investments, and difficulties related to the process of redirecting the existing trade routes.

The paper deals with SWOT analysis of Slovak rivers. Although Slovak Republic is situated in the Central Europe, waterways are relatively short and not branched. Inland waterway includes commercial, sporting and tourist navigations. Commercial navigation is limited by flow volume and length of floating period. For commercial navigation have Danube, Váh and Bodrog the best conditions. All three navigable rivers do not allow maximum stable immergence use of actual vessels during the whole year. Navigable conditions (curve radiuses, fairway width, navigable depth, flow rate, flowage) are changeable during the year.

Abstract. Traditionally, navigation-related forecasts in central Europe cover short- to medium-range lead times linked to the travel times of vessels to pass the main waterway bottlenecks leaving the loading ports. Without doubt, this aspect is still essential for navigational users, but in light of the growing political intention to use the free capacity of the inland waterway transport in Europe, additional lead time supporting strategic decisions is more and more in demand. However, no such predictions offering extended lead times of several weeks up to several months currently exist for considerable parts of the European waterway network. This paper describes the set-up of a monthly to seasonal forecasting system for the German stretches of the international waterways of the Rhine, Danube and Elbe rivers. Two competitive forecast approaches have been implemented: the dynamical set-up forces a hydrological model with post-processed outputs from ECMWF general circulation model System 4, whereas the statistical approach is based on the empirical relationship (teleconnection) of global oceanic, climate and regional hydro-meteorological data with river flows. The performance of both forecast methods is evaluated in relation to the climatological forecast (ensemble of historical streamflow) and the well-known ensemble streamflow prediction approach (ESP, ensemble based on historical meteorology) using common performance indicators (correlation coefficient; mean absolute error, skill score; mean squared error, skill score; and continuous ranked probability, skill score) and an impact-based evaluation quantifying the potential economic gain. The following four key findings result from this study: (1) as former studies for other regions of central Europe indicate, the accuracy and/or skill of the meteorological forcing used has a larger effect than the quality of initial hydrological conditions for relevant stations along the German waterways. (2) Despite the predictive limitations on longer lead times in central Europe, this study reveals the existence of a valuable predictability of streamflow on monthly up to seasonal timescales along the Rhine, upper Danube and Elbe waterways, and the Elbe achieves the highest skill and economic value. (3) The more physically based and the statistical approach are able to improve the predictive skills and economic value compared to climatology and the ESP approach. The specific forecast skill highly depends on the forecast location, the lead time and the season. (4) Currently, the statistical approach seems to be most skilful for the three waterways investigated. The lagged relationship between the monthly and/or seasonal streamflow and the climatic and/or oceanic variables vary between 1 month (e.g. local precipitation, temperature and soil moisture) up to 6 months (e.g. sea surface temperature). Besides focusing on improving the forecast methodology, especially by combining the individual approaches, the focus is on developing useful forecast products on monthly to seasonal timescales for waterway transport and to operationalize the related forecasting service.

This article deals with benefits and problems of using GPS monitoring and Inland AIS, which is the part of river information services operating on Danube. It is based mainly on results and experience from monitoring of two pusher tugboats on Danube and Danube – Main – Rhine canal within the project Chemlog T&T. It also contains statistics of their navigation on particular Danube sections in up stream and down stream direction, such as transit durations between particular ports, proportion of speed in percentage in particular Danube sections and delays in lock chambers or in front of them.

In this paper we present the current situation related to the legislative framework on the definition of generated waste by ships in the field of maritime navigation and inland waterway navigation, their management on board ships, handover to port facilities and results in the development of proposals to support participants in the shipping activity in the field of pollution prevention of the Romanian Danube sector. The purpose of the paper is to contribute to the improvement of the current measures that are applied in the field of prevention of pollution of the Romanian Danube sector by ships.

Encouraged by China’s “[Formula: see text] Cooperation” mechanism and the “Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)”, many Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) expect more Chinese engagement in the development of the Danube sub-region. Located in the Danube sub-region, CEECs share common development needs in waterway transport, environmental protection, energy supply and ecological conservation, all of which are great opportunities for China. Nevertheless, China is still faced with some challenges when participating in the Danube sub-regional cooperation with the European Union (EU) and CEECs. When exploring the feasibility of cooperation in the sub-region, China needs to strive for strategic synergy with the EU, and in particular the EU Strategy for Danube Region (EUSDR), make full use of the existing sub-regional platforms and mechanisms for better understanding of recent developments as well as regulations and standards implemented in the sub-region, and expand cooperation with countries along the river, in order to better drive the development of the sub-region.