Historical River Training Works on the Lower Elbe

Abstract

The paper deals with river training works built on the reach of the Elbe River between the city of Ústí nad Labem (CZ) and the Czech/German border. Downstream of the Ústí nad Labem, the Elbe in the Czech Republic and in Germany has only been made navigable through river training measures without building weirs. The goal of river training for watercourse navigability is to attain the required waterway parameters through fairway adjustments. This is primarily achieved through channel dredging and the construction of training dams to concentrate the water flow into a narrower but deeper main channel. The paper describes the historical development of river training works during the period from the Middle Ages to the present day. Initially, such works were not meant as part of a unified conceptually designed system of measures. Instead, they were local initiatives aimed to remove natural obstacles from the river bed and to build facilities and structures to aid navigation. Systematic regulation works along the Czech and German sections of the Elbe only started in the early 19th century. The research was focused on studying the original project documents and documentation of the actual design of the training dams since 1894. This historical design documentation was digitised and projected into the maps in the Czech JTSK local coordinate system through the use of advanced geographic information system (GIS) methods. The final atlas of river training works on the Elbe-Vltava Waterway (EVW) along the lower Elbe in the Czech Republic is the first of its kind, utilising geographic information systems to document the locations of technical structures built since the early 19th century in the Elbe River bed in order to make the river navigable and maintain its navigability. The collection of maps also documents the development of the river training works in time based on map data obtained from digitised design documentation from the 19th and 20th centuries, historical aerial photographs dated 1930–1946 and 1950–1964, and present-day maps and orthophotomaps of the Elbe section in question. The atlas of the Elbe-Vltava Waterway river training works is publicly available via a web-based application. The maps are a result of original research and offer a synthesis of interactions between the existing technical structures, the sediment regime of the Elbe and sites that are subject to environmental protection. The research was conducted as part of project no. DG18P02OVV004 entitled “Documentation and presentation of technical cultural heritage along the Elbe-Vltava Waterway” within a support programme for applied research and experimental development of national and cultural identity, funded by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.