Environmental status of the Danube commercial navigation: Serbia and the Danube border countries

Abstract

The Danube navigation is geographically limited and subject to the effects of environmental change. On the other hand, the Danube commercial navigation is the point source of pollution with emissions of the Danube vessels and harbours, directly polluting the environment. The focus of this paper is the annual evaluation and calculation of air polluting emissions from fossil fuel consumption from the following types of the Danube fleet: push boats, pull boats, freight motor vessels and cruise passenger ships. Emissions from the Danube transport vessels are estimated by EMEP/EEA (European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme/European Environment Agency) air pollutant emission inventory guidebook within Serbian-Croatian, Serbian and Serbian-Romanian sections of the Danube fairway on an average level. Emissions costs for all types of the Danube fleet (euro per vessel-kilometre) are estimated by the Practical guideline for realistic transport pricing depending on the population density close to the waterway: rural or urban area.

KEYWORDS:

• Danube waterway transport
• environmental status of the Danube navigation
• Serbia and border countries
• emissions from the Danube transport vessels
• emission costs

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River was established with the following Contracting Parties: Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Ukraine and EU.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nataša Tomić-Petrović

Prof. Nataša Tomić – Petrović graduated from the Faculty of Law, University in Belgrade (average grade A). Her papers have been published in several scientific journals and presented at national and international conferences. In 2000, she worked three months at the Faculty of Law in Athens doing research for her thesis and got specialisation in Environmental Law. Nataša Tomic defended cum laude master’s thesis and got a Master’s degree in Administrative and Environmental Law in 2002 at the Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade. In September 2008 Nataša Tomic defended cum laude her doctoral dissertation and got a doctoral degree at the Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade. In the open competition of ‘Andrejević Foundation’ her master’s thesis and her doctoral thesis have both been selected for publication and published as the best in their scientific discipline. As a doctor of juridical sciences, today N. Tomić is teaching Traffic Law, Maritime Law, Aviation Law and Legal regulation of transport and Environmental Protection as the Full Professor at the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering, at the University of Belgrade.

Zoran Radmilović

Prof. Zoran Radmilović is a retired professor in the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering and has been a regular member of the Engineering Academy of Serbia since 2008. Pedagogical and scientific research is related to the proper areas: operation research in waterborne transport, port and harbours, inland waterways, navigation, safety, climate change and environmental protection in maritime and inland waterway transports, in the primary: academic, master and doctoral studies. He has published many scientific papers in international journals such as the Journal of Waterways, Port, Coastal and Ocean Engineering, Transport Planning and Technology, Maritime Economics and Logistics, Journal of Transportation Geography, Sustainable Transportation, etc. in the areas of maritime and inland waterway transports.

Radoslav Rajković

Research Assistant, Radoslav Rajkovic graduated from the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering, University in Belgrade. Since November 2011, he has been employed at the Innovation Center of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, the University of Belgrade, as a research assistant on the technological development project: ‘Development of software and national database for strategic management of the development of transport means and infrastructure in road, rail, air and water transport using European transport network models', financed by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia. From March 2013 to December 2016, he worked as a multimodal transport manager in the maritime-river agency Agent Plus, the leading domestic company in providing logistics services in Serbia. From December 2016 to September 2017, he worked as a container transport manager at Boxline, the leading Italian company in providing container shipping in Serbia. Since September 2017, he has been working as a container shipping development manager at Dragon Maritime SEE d.o.o., COSCO Shipbroker, one of the world’s largest shipping companies. In January 2017 – he participated in the international project ‘Interreg’ entitled ‘DBS GATEWAY REGION - REGIONAL AND TRANSPORT DEVELOPMENT IN THE DANUBE-BLACK SEA REGION TO A TRANSNATIONAL MULTIPORT GATEWAY REGION'