Tackling the Danube’s critical spots

(21-04-2011)

The Danube is an important link in Europe's inland shipping network. But at numerous places the river is shallow or not wide enough for navigation by river-going ships. The European Union is going to tackle the critical locations on account of the economic importance of the river. Witteveen+Bos has been contracted to produce design plans for eighteen locations in Serbia and the specifications of the work required at five locations.

Witteveen+Bos is carrying out the contract for the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment. A special feature of the contract is that the critical locations between the Serbian/Hungarian border and the Serbian capital Belgrade will be tackled as a single operation. The project will take about twenty months to complete. Witteveen+Bos signed the contract worth 1.9 million euro on 18 April 2011.

Transport master plan

The project stems from the transport master plan that we produced in 2006 for inland shipping in Serbia. So far Serbia is the only Danube country with a complete plan for improving the network for inland shipping and for the river ports. The work will be carried out in association with DHI (Denmark) and Energoproject (Serbia). The elements of the work consist of conducting an environmental study, making hydraulic-morphological models, performing soil surveys and designing river works varying from groins and longitudinal dikes to dredging.

Experience in Serbia

Witteveen+Bos has a lot of experience in Serbia. Besides the master plan for inland shipping, we were engaged to help draw up Serbia’s general transport master plan. In 2007 we produced the design plan and specifications for raising 21 German warships sunk during the Second World War. We recently worked on the installations of lock complexes on the border with Rumania and are currently conducting an environmental study into cleaning up the area around Europe's largest copper mine.