The World Canals Conference reverted to an on-site event in June 2024 after an on-line version in 2023. The event was based in Bydgoszcz in the Kujawsko-Pomorskie region of Poland, where the Rivers Brda and Wisła (Vistula) meet, along with the old and new Bydgoszcz Canals.
Inland waterways can play a pivotal role in the EU’s efforts to decarbonise the transport system, according to the Council of the European Union. In December 2022, the Council voted to approve the conclusions of the NAIADES III report on ‘Ongoing development of inland waterways transport’.
IWI is a member go the ‘Think Climate’ coalition under the auspices of PIANC (The World Association for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure), working on a far-reaching initiative Navigating a Changing Climate.
A milestone in development of the European waterway network for 3000-tonne barges and push-tows was marked on Tuesday 4 October when the 36m-high Niederfinow shiplift was officially opened, on the Havel-Oder Canal.
The first vessel to pass through the new lift, with its striking architecture, was the Waterway Authority’s icebreaker Frankfurt. Barges and tankers up to 115m long can now transport cargoes between the Polish port of Szceczin and Berlin and beyond.
When we visited the site in May 2022, before attending the World Canals Conference in Leipzig, we saw that even a single-barge Polish push-tow had to split to pass through the original lift, opened in 1933, with its usable length of only 83.50m.
IWI President Dave Ballinger reports: I had the distinct pleasure to attend a commemoration ceremony in Rochester, N.Y. on Friday, June 22, 2012, where a new park building was named after our former president (and current vice-president) Tom Grasso. In her speech Maggie Brooks, Monroe County Executive, hailed Tom Grasso as a ‘statewide leader in the preservation of the Erie Canal and […] strong advocate
A report commissioned by former prime minister François Fillon has delivered its verdict on the scale of works required to restore the Canal du Midi‘s priceless tree canopy. The 42,000 plane trees (82% of the trees lining the banks) are being decimated by canker stain. Despite a range of preventive measures and careful felling of the affected trees, the whole population of plane trees east
Roger Squires, a founder member of IWI, was awarded the British Empire Medal in the 2012 Queen’s Birthday Honours, to recognise his life-time commitment to promoting the UK’s historic canals and rivers, particularly the waterways of the London area.
Canal historian William E. Trout III* will attend the World Canals Conference in Yangzhou, China, this September with an agenda. He hopes to find out what happened to the Emperor’s lock model, taken from England to China in the late 18th century. This mystery is tied up in the broader history of technological development of hydraulics and engineering related to locks and inclined planes for
What does Lille, the historic capital of Flanders, have in common with Milan and Tokyo? Or even with The Hague, featured in this blog a few days ago? It is a city that is determined to revive its historic intimacy with water, or what our Lombardy friends elegantly describe as la civiltà delle acque, or civilisation centred on water. This means reversing the trend which
We are reproducing here the text of the letter from presidential candidate François Hollande to Jacques Romain, President, Entente des Canaux du Centre France (see article posted on our blog). The same letter was sent to Michel Dourlent, president of the Chambre Nationale de la Batellerie Artisanale.
French president François Hollande supports inland water transport as a carrier of freight to and from the country’s struggling seaports. While still a candidate in the second round of the presidential election, he signed on May 2nd a letter to two waterway organisations indicating a firm intention to revive the Environmental Policy initiated and then abandoned by the previous government, to transfer more freight from
‘Small is beautiful’ could be a motto for canals, especially in cities. And this simple precept is now being followed in the Netherlands with spectacular results. This was the main lesson learned during the EU Waterways Forward partnership meeting in The Hague on May 30th-June 1st. During the first day of proceedings, May 31st, delegates discovered the ambitious canal restoration plans of South Holland and
Despite the weather, the Thames Pageant on June 3rd with 1000 boats, celebrating the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, was a huge success. For the inland waterways movement, this brought unprecedented recognition, narrow boats and barges making up the seventh of the 10 sections of the regatta.
Edo Bricchetti, a member of IWI’s Council and The International Council for Conservation of Industrial Heritage (TICCIH), has been tirelessly defending the priceless heritage of Lombardy’s historic canals, the navigli, working closely with the responsible authorities for more than 20 years. During this time, although it does not directly manage the canals, Lombardy Region has set up an agency, SCARL Navigli Lombardi, whose task is to
In just a few years, three bottlenecks on the eastern borders of the European Union will have been removed, thanks in part to the persistent efforts of many organisations working together, campaigning and lobbying for canals, waterways and inland navigation. First to be completed was the restoration of the Augustowski Canal in Poland and its continuation in Belarus’ through to the Neman river, opened in
Barge owners and operators will contribute up to half of the cost of building the 106km long Seine-Nord Europe canal through the toll levied by the canal’s future private-sector operator. Two approaches were discussed at a meeting on April 18 in Ghent, bringing together VNF, Waterwegen & Zeekanalen (Flanders) and Service Public de Wallonie (Wallonia). The first, proposed by the project partners, involves charging more