The lower Vistula in the aspect of the E40 and E70 international shipping routes

Abstract

Throughout the history of Europe and the world, shipping routes have determined the development of many civilisations, since it was along them that settlements and commerce developed, goods and people were transported, and later, industry was located. Currently, shipping routes are an important element in inland transport corridors. The European Union puts particular emphasis on the development of inland and rail transport to balance road transport, which is drastically expanding. Development of inland waterway transport routes in Poland has allies in intensely developing sea ports. The allies of the lower Vistula (dolna Wisla) are the ports in Gdansk and Gdynia, for which construction of inland ports up-country is an opportunity to increase the trans-shipment capacity. Poland uses the potential of international inland waterways poorly when compared to other European Union countries, which results for instance from the bad technical condition of river engineering structures and from years of neglect in water management. The situation is further amplified by the lack of consistent laws regarding inland navigation and water management, as the responsibility for those issues is shared by several ministries, the institutions they are in charge of and local governments. Governments of the voivodeships situated along the planned international waterways E40 between Warsaw and Gdansk (Mazowieckie, Kujawsko-Pomorskie, Pomorskie voivodeships) and E70 (Lubuskie, Wielkopolskie, Kujawsko-Pomorskie, Warminsko-Mazurskie, Pomorskie voivodeships) can see both the transport and the tourism potential of Polish waterways. They have been working for many years to restore the rightful role of rivers and to bring about economic development using the advantages they offer. DOI: 10.12736/issn.2300-3022.2013212 Waterways and their multiple functions Let the article begin with the words of Professor Tadeusz Tillinger [3], defining river maximisation: “Waterways are on the one hand a part of the overall economy, and on the other hand, being an element of the transportation system, they are a part of the vascular system of the state body. It is the task of water management to channel the water falling from the sky onto the land to the sea in a way that makes it possible to minimise its harmful effects as an element and to maximise its useful properties as a matter indispensible to the lives of humans, animals and plants, as a material for transportation routes and as mass, i.e. a body with certain energy”. This statement was published in one of the first Polish post-war textbooks for contemporary water management employees, which was developed at the request of the Ministry of Transportation. The publication introduced the term “transport maximisation”, which meant “to provide the carriage necessary in the country in such a way that every type of freight is transported in the most favourable and suitable way and that the costs and other liabilities of carriage (waste of time, risk, discomfort) are minimised and that the advantages (increased value of the load caused by the change of place) are maximised” [3]. This statement can be nowadays referred to as optimisation of transport processes. Using that textbook [3], the assumptions of which seem to be valid to this day, I will present the issue of waterways and the E40 and E70 routes as part of a water management system in a broad sense. Waterways have a multifaceted significance in the context of water management. Water may be a dangerous element, posing a danger to human life and causing material damage through disastrous floods. We can prevent this hydrological phenomenon Ż. Marciniak | Acta Energetica 2/15 (2013) | 153–161