Vistula river, its characteristics and management

Abstract

The Vistula is the main river in Poland, which flows from the mountains in the south to the Baltic Sea in the north. The importance of the Vistula is justified by high discharge, river length, and large catchment area. The average annual discharge of the Vistula to the Bay of Gdansk is more than thousand cubic meters per second. River length amounts to 1047 km from its source to the discharge point. Sometimes its length is divided into two sections: The Small Vistula (106 km in length) from the source to the tributary - Przemsza River, and the remaining part 941km long, which is considered as Navigable Vistula. The whole run of the Vistula is on the terrain of Poland (Figure1). The Vistula catchment amounts to nearly 200 thousand km2 and 87% of this catchment is within Polish territory. The remaining part of the catchment (13%) is in the neighboring countries. During more than thousand years of Polish history the Vistula created always a very important economic axis of the country. It was a unique transportation route and provided water and food for people who settled on its banks. The Vistula played also important cultural role in paintings, music and songs. Very often it was used during wars as a defensive line. During XVI, XVII and XVIII century the Vistula was a very important waterway connecting its catchment with Gdansk which was a harbor for import of various goods from Europe and export of timber, wheat and other agricultural products. Despite rather primitive means of water transport during this time, nearly quarter million tons of various products were transported downstream and upstream. At the end of XVIII century Poland was partitioned by Prussia, Russia and Austria. These countries divided Poland and the whole Vistula run into three sections. There was no cooperation between these countries and the Vistula lost its importance as navigable waterway. There was, however, significant engineering activity in the northern part of the river, which was occupied by Prussia. In the XVIII and XIX century most European rivers developed rapidly providing water, energy, food and means of transport for their countries economy. Good examples are Rhine, Rhone, Seine, Danube, or Volga.