River Danube Page 1 of 3 The Danube is Europe's second longest river, rising on the eastern slopes of the Black Forest in Germany and eventually flowing into the Black Sea via its delta in eastern Romania. It has a total length of 2858km (1075km of which is in Romania). All of Romania's portion of the Danube is navigable (the total length of Romania's navigable rivers and canals is 1690km). The drainage basin of the Danube is enormous, covering 805,300 km². Importantly for trans-European communication, the Danube is now part of the Rhine-Main-Danube Waterway, an inland waterway which links the North Sea at Rotterdam with the Black Sea on the Ukrainian / Romanian border. The inland waterway communication system also links to the Mediterranean via the Rhine-Rhone Waterway. The Black Sea Canal (the Cerna Canal) cuts through the Dobrogea platform to link the Danube directly to the Black Sea south of Constanta thus avoiding the delta area. The Iron Gates section of the river holds a reputation for hazardous whirlpools, currents and rocks just below the surface. Passage through this section was limited to the 200 or so days of the year when the water level was high enough and even then experienced pilots had to be taken on board at Moldova. Substantial deepening and widening of sections of the Iron Gates took place in 1896 but the river did not become easily navigable until the 1970s with the construction of the Portile de Fier scheme. The Kazan gorge, 16km upstream of Orsova has cliffs which fall 600m into the Danube. The Romans built a road through the gorge here by drilling holes into the cliff face and inserting beams which formed the support for a fortified carriageway. A 19th century Hungarian road and the original Roman road have both been lost, the later as a result of Romanian neglect and the eventual rising waters of the dammed Danube. The Iron Gates Dam, Reservoir and Navigation System River Navigation The Portile de Fier (Iron Gates) dam with its flooding of the Danube as far up stream as Belgrade has had a massive effect on increasing traffic on the river in recent times. The problematic Iron Gates section of the Danube, with its narrow, hazardous gorge was always a difficult part of the river to navigate. The substantial rise in water level following the construction of the dam between 1960 and 1971 made the navigation of the Iron Gates far easier. River traffic passes through a double lock system to descend the 33m to the Drobeta side of the dam. There are locks on the Serbian side of the river and on the Romanian side of the river. | 1 | 2 | 3 | Page 1 of 3