River Danube

This is a blog about the River Danube made by Emily, Alex, Ashley, Luke & Libby.

River Danube is the longest river in the European Union and Europe's second largest river after the Volga. It flows 2,780 kilometres from its source in the Black Forest of Germany through the Romanian and Ukrainian Delta to the Black Sea and comprises together parts of 8 of Central and Eastern Europe.

The river Danube supports the supply of drinking water, agriculture, industry, fishing,
tourism and recreation, is used for power generation, navigation, and too often it is the final destination of disposal of waste waters. These intensive uses have created problems of water quality and quantity, and reduced biodiversity in the basin.

This map shows the route of River Danube.

It starts in the Black forest of Germany and it ends in Romania and then goes into the Black sea.

During the journey to the Black Sea, there are many industries and factories. They pollute the river and contaminate the water which kills fish and has a big impact on humans and wildlife.

Case study

On 30th January 2000 disaster struck. Cyanide leaked from a gold-mine reservior at Baia Mare reaching the River Tisza just over a week later. Two weeks after that it had reached the Danube and there as concern over water supply in Belgrade. Fish stocks in the Tisza River were poisoned, affecting many livelihoods. Water from thr Tisza is also used for irrigation, so affecting agriculture.

Problems
The water pollution is having a big effect on the River Danube, these are:

1) 85 million people throughout Europe are not getting good use out of th river water- of the water being polluted.

2) Many fish are getting killed- this is also caused by the pollution of the river.

3) Environment-wildlife being affected.

4) Local business- could lose people's interest in the business/ need to shut down because people are moving away.

Economics of the Danube

The River Danube has many uses. This includes drinking water, navigation and transport, fishing and tourism. There are many economics activities causing the pollution e.g. agriculture, energy production( hydro and nuclear power), industry(timber- processing and oil- refining), mineral extracting( coal, oil, uranium) and navigation.

Drinking water
Along its path, the Danube is a source of drinking water for about ten million people. In Baden- Wurttemberg, Germany, almost 30% of the water for the area comes from purified water of the Danube. Other cities like Ulm and Passuu also use some water from the Danube but most states now find it too difficult to have access to clean water because of extensive pollution, it's also very hard to clean the water; only parts of Romania where the water is cleaner still use a lot of drinking water from the Danube.

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 but because there are many fish died in river Danube, fisherman are now finding it hard to depends their livings on fishing.

Solutions

There are many solutions that can help us to solve the problems of River Danube:

1) Monitor water quality and emission levels along the river.

2) Prevent and reduct of transboundary impact.

3) Countries needs to co-operate with each other to allow cross- border clean up operations.

4) Maybe come up with a new law- it's illegal to pollute the river.

5) Maintain and improve water quality.

6) Control hazards from accidental spills.

The Danube countries agreed on a plan of action to clean up the river. The Danube River Protection Convention( agreement) came into force in October 1998.