IWI is supporting a collective effort to relaunch the Inland Waterways Pavilion at BOOT Düsseldorf on 17-25 January 2026. The opportunity is presented by the BOOT organising team in a brochure available to download here. The Pavilion, last organised in January 2020, is the ideal venue to welcome strongly motivated visitors and expand your markets … Read more
View this excellent video inviting waterway professionals, operators, experts and enthusiasts to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Erie Canal at the World Canals Conference in Buffalo, NY, on September 21-25! View here or on IWI’s YouTube Channel
The new Lake District south of Leipzig has been aiming at interconnected waters since the start of the open-cast mine reclamation project 30 years ago. Several locks have been opened, as shown on our plan. Now a feasibility study has been launched to explore options for a boat passage between Cospuden Lake and Zwenkau Lake. … Read more
Ninety years after it was opened in the Eastern Moravia region of the Czech Republic, the Baťa Canal is being extended for recreational navigation. IWI’s upcoming magazine (issue No. 39) will give details of this ambitious project implemented by the Directorate of Waterways of the Czech Republic in partnership with the region and local authorities. When the … Read more
As a member of PIANC’s Navigating a Changing Climate initiative, IWI supports the association’s Declaration on Climate Change, launched today 10th December 2019, during the Round Table on Resilience at COP25 in Madrid, Spain. The President of the World Association for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure (PIANC) presented the policy document as PIANC’s contribution to the growing … Read more
A sense of urgency permeates the air in Lombardy as well as in neighbouring Piedmont, Emilia Romagna and Veneto regions, regarding Italy’s network of navigable canals and rivers. What reality will be revealed to the world of inland waterway specialists and advocates, meeting in Milan on September 1st for the 27th World Canals Conference? It … Read more
The subject is not totally taboo, but in 40 years of activity on the inland waterways, a ‘world of its own’, I have found that people prefer to avoid it. ‘The less said the better’, seems to be the motto ! Confronted with two conflicting ‘politically correct’ opinions, Euromapping decided to undertake a detailed survey, starting … Read more
VNF’s summary report on its activities in 2012 devotes one of its 10 chapters to the tree-replanting programme and corporate patronage approach to funding the €200 million restoration of the Canal du Midi’s characteristic landscape. VNF reports (in its New Year press release) that it felled 1668 plane-trees condemned by canker stain in 2012, and … Read more
The Google Streetview automatic scrambler of peoples’ faces has indiscriminately defaced the creator of the Canal du Midi on a banner outside the canal museum at Saint-Ferréol. This delightful quirk of automation of image processing suggests a new form of request to be made to our omnipotent and omniscient provider of images of the planet: ‘Dear G, Please unscramble the image of Pierre Paul Riquet. He died in 1680, so you’re safe from any legal action!’
Radomir Ječinac reports from Belgrade, Serbia, on the ‘regatta’ (flotilla cruise) organised on the canals and waterways of Serbia in June/July 2012. Remember IWI’s annual World Canals Conference held in Serbia, in the beautiful city of Novi Sad on the Danube, in 2009? The host, Vode Vojvodine (Vojvodina waters) is an all-important institution in our country, which was founded … Read more
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 … Read more
‘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 … Read more