The impact of human activities on the Danube River and Danube Delta. Solutions for the Danube River rearrangement. - 中欧社会论坛 - China Europa Forum

The impact of human activities on the Danube River and Danube Delta. Solutions for the Danube River rearrangement.

Authors: IOAN JELEV and VIORICA JELEV

Published by National Institute for Hydrology and Water Management, Spiru Haret University, Bucharest, Romania

In the current state of sustainable development policies, the Danube River, particularly the Danube Delta, located at the interface between Danube and the Black Sea, as a relevant habitat for a large number of species of wild flora and fauna, is subject to a growing international interest, especially after 1990, when due to the decision issued by the Romanian Government, the unsustainable economic activities in that area have been stopped. From that moment on, the area received the status of biosphere reservation, as a natural world heritage. At the same time, the Danube Delta is located not only administratively, but also geographically, at the cross point of the concerns of the two regional environmental conventions of great importance: The Convention for Sustainable Management of the Danube River and The Convention for the Black Sea Protection. An interface Task Force has been established – DABLAS – to harmonize and to correlate the objectives and the targets assumed by the two important conventions.

The Danube Delta, as a complex result of the interaction between the Danube and the sea, is currently, to the greatest extent, under the influence of the Danube River’s activity.

The Danube River is, after the Volga River, the second largest river in Europe and, at the same time, one of the most important in the world, due to its length of 2860 km, to the surface of watershed of over 817.000 km2, and also due to its multi-annual average discharge of approximate 6300 m3/s.

Human activities have caused many changes in physical and chemical parameters of the Danube River and Danube Delta, such like: high waters regime – floods regime; low waters regime – drought – pond depletion; the morphologic evolution of branches and of sediments at the exit point to the sea; density flows – lack of salt water; pollution phenomena; satisfying the necessities – drinking water supply, maritime navigation, agriculture, pisciculture, ecology, tourism; modifying the hydrologic and hydraulic parameters, as an effect of some hydrotechnical works in the Delta – calibrations of the water bed, embankment, damming , opening new branches, restorations(ecological reconstructions).

Some of the changes and solutions to reduce the associated impact, are emphasised in the present paper.

IOAN JELEV & VIORICA JELEV *

National Institute for Hydrology and Water Management, Spiru Haret University, Bucharest, Romania

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