Human intervention has shortened the length of the Danube in the past two centuries, the researchers said.

According to a riverbed survey published by the Bavarian Provincial Office, since the 19th century, the Danube has not only been shorter than its original length, but also 40 percent narrower. The changes were caused by human interventions such as the removal of meanders from rivers, flood protection interventions and the construction of dams.

It was also discovered that, as a result of human interventions, the river’s flood does not reach the Danube Delta, but is deposited in the river bed, which permanently changes the quality of the water. Previously, 40-60 million tons of sediment reached the Black Sea each year, but now only 15-20 million tons. The sediment is deposited along the river bed. Behind the dams that belong to the power plants, there is a total lack of sediment, which often deepens the riverbed there, experts explained.

To restore the sediment home, the researchers proposed different methods to retrieve the deposited sediment from the water. Such a measure could be the removal of the riverfront fortifications or the construction of modern hydroelectric power plants. Agriculture, in turn, could contribute to improving the level of alluvium in the Danube through erosion mitigation measures.

The project, largely funded by the European Union, involved 14 institutions from 9 countries in the Danube region (Hungary, Austria, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Slovakia, Germany, Romania, Croatia, Serbia) and analyzed river sediment for three years.

The Danube is now officially 2,857 km long, the second longest river in Europe after the Volga, which was still almost 3,000 km in the 19th century. Currently only a tenth is in an “almost natural state” according to the Bavarian authorities.



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