The Danube
The Danube, ancient Danubius, ancient Greek Istros, is the longest river of the European Union and Europe’s second longest, after Volga. It originates in the Black Forest in Germany, as two smaller rivers – the Brigach and the Breg – which join at Donaueschingen, and it is from here that it is known as the Danube, flowing generally eastwards for a distance of some 2850 km (1771 miles), passing through Central and Eastern European capitals, before emptying into the Black Sea, via the Danube Delta in Romania.
The Danube has been an important international waterway for centuries, as it remains today. Known to history as one of the long-standing frontiers of the Roman Empire, the river flows through – or forms a part of the borders of – ten countries: Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova and Ukraine. In addition, the drainage basin includes parts of ten more countries: Italy, Poland, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Moldova and Albania.
The names of the river are: in German – Donau, Slovak – Dunaj, Albanian – Danubi, Polish – Dunaj, Hungarian – Duna, Croatian – Dunav, Serbian – Dunav, Bulgarian – Dunav, Romanian – Dunare, Ukrainian – Dunay, Italian – Danubio, Latin – Danuvius, Turkish – Tuna, Slovene – Donava, local Yiddish – Duner. They are all ultimately derived from the Proto-Indo-European danu, meaning river or stream. Still nowadays, don in Ossetic language means both water and river. Other major European river names with this Indo-European root for “stream” include the Donets, Dnieper, Dniester, the Don River, Russia, and the river Don, England.
The Danube flows through the following major cities: Ulm – Germany, Ingolstadt – Germany, Regensburg – Germany (capital of Upper Palatine), Passau – Germany, Linz – Austria (Capital of Upper Austria), Krems – Austria, Vienna – capital of Austrai, where the Danube floodplain is called the Lobau, Bratislava – capital of Slovakia, Komarno – Slovakia, Komarom – Hungary, Esztergom – Hungary, Budapest – capital of Hungary, Baja – Hungary, Vukovar – Croatia, Backa Palanka – city in Serbian province of Vojvodina, Novi sad – capital of the Serbian province of Vojvodina, Belgrade – capital of Serbia, Smederevo – Serbia, Drobeta Turnu Severin – Romania, Vidin – Bulgaria, Lom – Bulgaria, Rousse – Bulgaria, Silistra – Bulgaria, Braila – Romania, Galati – Romania, Tulcea – Romania, Izmail – Ukraine.
Since the construction of the German Rhine-Main-Danube Canal in 1992, the river has been part of a trans-European waterway from Rotterdam on the North Sea to Sulina on the Black sea (3,500 km). In 1994 the Danube was declared one of the 10 Pan-European transport corridors, routes in Central and Eastern Europe that required major investment over the following ten to fifteen years. The amount of goods transported on the Danube increased to about 100 million tons in 1997. In 1999, transport on the river was made difficult by NATO bombing of 3 bridges in Serbia. The clearance of the debris was finished in 2002. the temporary pontoon bridge that hampered navigation was finally removed in 2005.
At the Iron gates, the Danube flows through a gorge that forms part of the boundary between Serbia and Romania. It contains the hydroelectric Iron Gate I dam, followed at about 60 km downstream (outside the gorge) by the Iron Gate II dam.
There are three artificial waterways built on the Danube: the Danube-Tisa-Danube Canal in the Banat and Backa Palanka regions (Vojvodina, northern province of Serbia). The 64 km Danube – Black Sea Canal, between Cernavoda and Constanta (Romania) finished in 1984, shortens the distance to the Black sea by 400 km. The Rhine-Main-Danube Canal (about 171 km), finished in 1992, links the North Sea to the Black Sea.
Geology
Although the headwaters of the Danube are relatively small today, geologically, the Danube is much older than the Rhine, with which its catchments area competes in today’s southern Germany. This has a few interesting geological complications. Since the Rhine is the only river rising in the Alps Mountains which flows towards the North Sea, an invisible line divides large parts of southern Germany, which is sometimes referred to as the European Watershed.
However, before the last ice age in the Pleistocene, the Rhine started at the southwestern tip of the Black Forest, while the waters of the Alps that today feed the Rhine were carried east by the so-called Urdonau (original Danube). Parts of the ancient river’s bed, which was much larger than today’s Danube, can still be seen in (now waterless) canyons in today’s landscape of the Swabian Alb. After the Upper Rhine Valley had been eroded, most waters from the Alps changed their direction and began feeding the Rhine. Today’s upper Danube is but a meek reflection of the ancient one.
Since the Swabian Alb is largely shaped of porous limestone, and since the Rhine’s level is much lower than the Danube’s, today subsurface rivers carry much water from the Danube to the Rhine. On many days in the summer, when the Danube carries little water, it completely oozes away noisily into these underground channels at two locations in the Swabian Alp, which are referred to as the Danube Sink. Most of this water resurfaces only 12 km south at the Aachopf, Germany’s wellspring with the highest flow, an average of 8,500 liters per second, north of Lake Constance – thus feeding Rhine. The European Water divide thus in fact only applies for those waters that pass beyond this point, and only during the days of the year when the Danube carries enough water to survive the sink holes in the Donauversickerung.
Since this enormous amount of underground water wrodes much of its surroundings limestone, it is estimated that the Danube upper course will one day disappear entirely in favour of the Rhine, an event called stream capturing.
Human history
The Danube basin contains sites of the earliest human cultures: the Danubian Neolithic cultures include the Linear Pottery Cultures of the mid-Danube basin, the Vucedol Culture (from site Vucedol, near Vukova, Croatia) of the 3rd millennium BC is famous for their ceramics. Later, many sites of the Vinca culture are sited along the Danube. The river was part of the Roman empire’s Limes Germanicus.
Legend says that Attila the Hun was laid to rest on the bottom of the Duna river.
Of importance for the Danube is also the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River. It’s an international organization consisting of 13 member states (Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova and Ukraine) and the European Union. It was established in 1998 and deals not only with the Danube itself, but with the whole Danube river basin, which includes also its tributaries and the ground water resources. The goal of this organization is t implement the Danube River Protection Convention, promoting and coordinating sustainable and equitable water management, including conservation, improvement and rational use of waters fro the benefit of the Danube river basin countries and their people.
Cultural significance
The Danube is mentioned in the title of the famous waltz by Austrian composer Johann Strauss, By The Beautiful Blue Danube. This song was composed as Strauss was traveling down the Danube river. This song is well known across the world and is also used widely as a lullaby.
Another famous waltz about the Danube is The Waves of the Danube (Rom: Valurile Dunarii) by the Romanian composer Ion Ivanovici (1845-1902) and the work took the audience by storm when performed at the 1889 Paris Exposition.
The German tradition of landscape painting, the Danube school, was developed in the Danube valley in the 16th century.
The most beautiful book describing the Danube might be Claudio Magris’s masterpiece “Danube”.
The river is the subject of the film “The Ister”.
Economics of the Danube
Drinking water
Along its path, the Danube is a source of drinking water for about ten million people. In Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany, almost 30% (as of 2004) of the water for the area between Stuttgart, Bad Mergentheim, Aalen and Alb-Donau (district) comes from purified water of the Danube. Other cities like Ulm or Passau also use some water from the Danube.
In Austria and Hungary, most water comes from ground and spring sources, and only in rare cases is water from the Danube used. Most states also find it too difficult to clean the water because of extensive pollution; only parts of Romania where the water is cleaner still use a lot of drinking water from the Danube.
Navigation and transport
As “Corridor VII” of the European Union, the Danube is an important transport route. Since the opening of the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal, the river connects the Black sea with the industrial centers of western Europe and with the Port of Rotterdam. The waterway is designed for large scale inland vessels (110 by 11,45 m) but it can carry much larger vessels on most of its course. The Danube has been partially canalized in Germany (5 locks) and Austria (10 locks). Further proposals to build a number of new locks in order to improve navigation have not progressed, due in part to environmental concerns.
Downstream from Freudenau Locks in Vienna, canalization of the Danube was limited to Gabcikovo dam and locks near Bratislava, and the two double Iron Gate locks in the border stretch of the Danube between Serbia and Romania. These locks have larger dimensions (similar to the locks in the Russian Volga river, some 300 by over 30 m). downstream of the Iron gate, the river is free flowing all the way to the Black sea, a distance of more than 860 km.
The Danube connects with the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal at Kelheim, and with the Wiener Donaukanal in Vienna. Apart from a couple of secondary navigable branches, the only major navigable rivers linked to the Danube are the Drava, Sava and Tisza. In Serbia, a canal network also connects the river; the network, known as the Dunav-Tisa-Dunav canals, links sections downstream.
Fishing
The importance of fishing on the Danube, which used to be critical in the Middle Ages, has declined dramatically. Some fishermen are still active at certain points on the river, and the Danube Delta still has an important industry.
Important tourist and natural spots along the Danube, including Wachau valley, the National park Donau – Auen in Austria, the Natrupark Obere Donau in Germany, Kopacki rit in Croatia, Iron Gates (Danube Gorge) and Danube Delta in Romania.
Danube Day in Romania
Romania’s Danube Day will look to the past and future to find solutions that work for the Danube and its peoples, with a major conference on international cooperation.. events will focus on developing strategies for the protection and sustainable use of the Danube system and continuing to highlight these issues to local people.
A major Danube Day campaign aims to help those affected by the recent major flooding. Under the slogan – Rediscover the Danube Soul: Help the People affected by Flooding – the Ministry of the Environment and Water management will communicate the importance of the Danube and water protection, highlighting a call for humanitarian aid to help people affected by the floods (with the support of Coca Cola Romania). 500 posters and banners will be distributed along with 7500 raincoats for people affected.
The centre for Romania’s festivities is Galati, where an international scientific conference – Past and Future in Danubian Institutional Cooperation – will top the agenda. The event, organized together by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Environment and water Management and local authorities, brings together key officials, the international community and the non-governmental sector on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Danube European Commission. Part of the conference is devoted to environmental and water protection issues, developed together with officials from Moldova’s Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources. Other agenda items include diplomatic aspects and navigation in the Danube-Maine-Rhine corridor. Following the event, and afternoon of entertainment on the banks of the Danube to be opened by the Romanian president, Traian Basescu , will get everyone celebrating and paying tribute to the river which provides so much for the region’s people.
The popular Danube Art Master competition will once again be inviting pupils to let their creativity run wild and make a piece of art inspired by the river. This basin-wide event, overseen by the Danube Environmental Forum, encourages children to think and act for the Danube, a key goal of Danube Day.
