Table of contents
- General comments
- 0. Guidance to the reader
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Heavily modified and artificial waters
- 3. Ecological status and potential
- 4. Hydromorphological pressures and impacts
- 5. Barriers – transversal structures
- 6. Abstraction and flow regulation and water level regulation
- 7. Morphological alterations
- 8. Hydromorphological issues in transitional and coastal waters
- 9. Sector and activity chapters
- 10.Hydropower and WFD
- 11. Navigation and WFD
- 12.Towards sustainable flood risk management
11. Navigation and WFD
11. Navigation and WFD
11.1. Introduction
European countries depend on maritime transport. Nearly 90% of the EU’s external trade and more than 40% of its internal trade goes by sea. Almost 2 billion tons of freight are now handled in more than 1200 EU ports each year, and volumes are continuing to increase1. As a result, recent years have seen a number of applications and approvals for major seaport developments. Many such developments have been required in order to accommodate the significant global increase in containerised transport, and further increases in such cargoes are anticipated. In addition to rationalised or new cargo handling and transhipment facilities, new container vessels require deeper access channels to certain ports.
Inland waterway transport plays also an important role in Europe today, and shifting more freight transport to water is considered a significant option to improve Europe’s transport system as a whole and to deal with constantly growing freight flows. Inland navigation is seen as an environmentally friendly transport mode with compared to other inland transport modes a relative low CO2 emission.
More than 37 000 kilometres of inlandwaterways connect hundreds of cities and industrial regions. Some 20 out of 27 Member States have inland waterways, 12 of which have an interconnected waterway networks.
Navigation activities and/or navigation infrastructure works are typically associated with a range of hydromorphological alterations with potential adverse ecological consequences (Figure 4b). Deepening including channel maintenance, dredging, removal or replacement of material is a major activity. Dredging, in turn, is of vital importance to many of the EU’s ports, harbours and waterways - providing and maintaining adequate water depths and hence safe navigational access. Channel works such as channelisation and straightening, training walls or breakwaters often are needed. Bank reinforcement, bank fixation, and embankments (training wall, breakwater, groynes etc.) often have been constructed. Some developments may also involve land claim and/or impoundment. Inland waterways as corridors for spreading invasive species
Potential impacts associated with these modifications can include:
- the physical removal of habitats or species;
- changes to physical processes (erosion, accretion and sediment transport);
- barriers to movement of species or the loss of connectivity between habitat sites (eg. due to impoundment or reclamation)
11.2. RBMP and inland waterway transport
Member States input on pressures related to inland navigation and pressures and impacts are needed.
Invasive species spread through inland waterways
The extensive networks of inland waterways in parts of Europe have allowed species from different bio-geographical regions to mix, altering communities, affecting the food webs and introducing new constraints to the recovery of the native biodiversity .
Text box: Invasion of large European rivers
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Invasive species have become a major concern in the Danube. The Joint Danube Survey in 2007 found killer shrimps, Dikerogammarus villosus, at 93 % of the sites sampled along the river, Asian clams at 90 % and carpets of weeds at 69 %. Killer shrimps can adapt to a wide range of habitats and cause significant ecological disruption such as species reduction. The water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) is considered one of the worst aquatic weeds in the world. Over the past two centuries, the connection of the Rhine with other river catchments through an extensive network of inland waterways has allowed macro-invertebrate species from different bio-geographical regions to invade the river. A total of 45 such species have been recorded. Transport by shipping and dispersal by man-made waterways are the most important dispersal vectors. |
Source: Danube Watch, 2008; Bernaur and Jansen, 2006; Leuven et al., 2009.
11.3. WFD and inland navigation
A section on WFD and inland navigation to be included
The current draft is partly based on information from PIANC WFD Navigation Task Group http://www.pianc.org/euwfd.asp
WFD potentially have significant implications for navigation, both for ongoing port activities such as dredging and disposal, and for new development proposals. The Program of Measures established by the RBMPs could potentially affect ports, navigation and dredging in a number of ways. For example, measures could require the modification of existing structures such as training walls or breakwaters to mitigate their effects. Measures affecting activities or operations are also possible - for example, the introduction of technical or temporal constraints on dredging and disposal activities to meet ecological targets.
Text box with Update of the Danube Regional Strategy aspects of increasing inland water transport by 20 % by 2020 – to be included.
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EC calls for more cargo transport on the Danube Cargo transport on the Danube river should be increased by 20% by 2020, according to an EU strategy for the region unveiled by the European Commission on Thursday. The plan follows a consultation with member states in February. Regional policy commissioner Johannes Hahn said the Danube is only using 10% of its shipping potential, pointing out that inland waterways are a greener mode of transport. The Rhine river carried 330 million tonnes of cargo in 2007 compared with just 50Mt for the Danube, a river more than twice as long. Green group WWF accused the commission of focusing too heavily on increasing cargo shipping. This would require a deepening and widening of the river, which could destroy valuable biodiversity and associated ecosystem services. Member states will decide whether to endorse the plan during the Hungarian presidency of the EU in the first half of 2011. They will decide how the proposed targets will be monitored and which of the 14 countries in the basin area, including six non-EU states, will participate. The commission has only a coordinator role. |
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WWF (Dec. 2010): Danube river to be severely impacted by plans to increase navigation http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/how_we_work/policy/wwf_europe_environment/news/?197714/Danube-to-be-severely-impacted-by-navigation |
References
Bernauer, D. and Jansen W. 2006: Recent invasions of alien macroinvertebrates and loss of native species in the upper Rhine River, Germany. Aquatic Invasions. Volume 1, Issue 2: 55-71.
Danube Watch. 2008: Invasion of the Danube. http://www.icpdr.org/icpdr-pages/dw0803_p_07.htm . [accessed 20 February 2012].
DG Transport Inland Waterway Transport http://ec.europa.eu/transport/inland/index_en.htm
Leuven, R.S.E.W., van der Velde, G., Baijens, I. et al. 2009: The river Rhine: a global highway for dispersal of aquatic invasive species. Biological Invasions. Vol.9. No.11, 1989-2008, DOI: 10.1007/s10530-009-9491-7. Springer-Verlag GmbH, Heidelberg. Germany.