The Danube and Vienna: urban resource use, transport and land use 1800–1910

Abstract

In this article, we investigate the changing role of the Danube river in relation to urban resource use, transport and land use for the case of nineteenth and early twentieth century Vienna. Vienna makes a good case study due to its geographical position as a continental city and its dynamic development of population numbers and transport infrastructure in the nineteenth century. We trace the amount of energy used in the city and identify a shift from a biomass-based energy supply to the large-scale use of coal. Along with this shift went a change in the Danube’s role as transport route: while until the 1870s, the Danube was the most important freight transport route, river transport lost importance after the great Danube regulation in 1875, and the railway took over. The river was the most important route for providing fuel wood well into the nineteenth century: Vienna drew wood from remote areas situated upstream along the Danube to the West of the city. Only after the railway connection to Northern coal deposits in the 1850s could Vienna’s energy base shift to coal. Finally, we investigate how land use in the city was affected by resource consumption and the river regulation. Wood use around the city was subject to legislative protection and was only little affected by Vienna’s resource demand. On the other hand, the Danube river regulation heavily impacted urban land use by supplying new areas suitable for settlement expansion.