Finally it rained. This thought recently united many providers of cruise travel on the Danube. Because in the past few weeks, many of them have been limited to the Passau – Linz – Vienna route. Upstream from Passau and downstream from Vienna, scheduled processing was not possible or only possible to a limited extent. Not at all towards the Black Sea. The Danube carried too little water for the cruise ships with too great a draft.
The rain of the past few days is now relaxing the situation – in Vienna, the river level has recently risen by two meters within two days. “We are confident that cruise trips can soon be carried out normally again,” says Petra Riffert, Managing Director of the Donau Oberösterreich Tourist Association.
The fact that this was hardly possible recently has increased the frequency with which ships come to Linz. “Last weekend there were ten cabin ships in Linz,” says Petra Riffert. “What’s good for tourism in Linz is anything but good for the shipowners, because they have to run the ship tours. If someone has booked a trip to Budapest but ends up in Vienna, then the customers have to take the bus to Hungary to be brought.”
There are several reasons why the water level of the Danube in Austria is stable: Inn, Enns and Traun bring large amounts of water into the Danube. In addition, the hydroelectric power plants are lined up closely together – at least in Upper Austria. “That takes the dynamics out of the river,” says Christoph Caspar from Via Donau, which is responsible for maintaining the waterway. The result: Fewer rock deposits and shallow areas are formed. This is different in the Wachau near Kienstock and in Wildmauer near Vienna. “Here the distance between the power plants is greater.” Therefore, the river must be increasingly dredged here.
30 meter wide channel
The dredging of the Danube is one reason why long periods of drought – as was the case recently – hardly pose a problem for shipping in Austria anyway. “From the 1960s, a channel was dug into the Danube in this country. It is around two and a half meters deep and 30 meters wide,” says Otto Steindl, long-time head of the Linz shipping police.
The 77-year-old knows the Danube like no other – he was born on a ship and has worked on and along the Danube all his life. “The rain has now calmed the situation. But the Danube is like a small child who falls ill overnight and then gets well again. If the Danube rises quickly, the level also falls again quickly.” The weather situation is unstable in the coming days. Yasmin Markl from the Central Institute for Meteorology cannot answer how and whether the local heavy precipitation will affect the tributaries of the Danube from Friday. In any case, the recent heavy rainfall only had a minor impact on the Danube in Upper Austria, says Christian Wakolbinger from the Hydrographic Service. The water that fell in Vorarlberg flows into the Rhine, while the rain in the Salzkammergut mainly fills the lakes.
In Bavaria, the Danube has not been dredged to the same extent. There is resistance to efforts in this regard from Vilshofen. And from Vienna in the direction of Hungary, the lack of power plants and the wide and flat river flow are the problem.
War relics unearthed
Coupled with the long drought, this meant that the Danube in Serbia carried less water than it had in almost a century. German Wehrmacht warships – the Black Sea Fleet – from the Second World War that had sunk in the riverbed were uncovered here. These are a constant danger to shipping because of their still dangerous “cargo”, namely tons of ammunition and explosives. According to estimates, a rescue would cost around 29 million euros.
Back to Linz: Cruise ships that dock here bring tourists to the city. But the floating hotels, which are up to 135 meters long, also pose an environmental problem. The electricity required is generated by diesel generators. The ships in Linz emit 59 tons of nitrogen oxides every year, as a study from 2017 showed. Linz AG is working on power lines (“shore power”), but these should not come until spring 2023.
Source: Nachrichten
