The Rhine River is Europe's most important commercial waterway,
channeling the flow of trade among Switzerland, France, Germany,
and the Netherlands. In this innovative study, Mark Cioc focuses on
the river from the moment when the Congress of Vienna established a
multinational commission charged with making the river more
efficient for purposes of trade and commerce in 1815. He examines
the engineering and administrative decisions of the next century
and a half that resulted in rapid industrial growth as well as
profound environmental degradation, and highlights the partially
successful restoration efforts undertaken from the 1970s to the
present. The Rhine is a classic example of a "multipurpose" river
-- used simultaneously for transportation, for industry and
agriculture, for urban drinking and sanitation needs, for
hydroelectric production, and for recreation. It thus invites
comparison with similarly over-burdened rivers such as the
Mississippi, Hudson, Colorado, and Columbia. The Rhine's
environmental problems are, however, even greater than those of
other rivers because it is so densely populated (50 million people
live along its borders), so highly industrialized (10% of global
chemical production), and so short (775 miles in length). Two
centuries of nonstop hydraulic tinkering have resulted in a Rhine
with a sleek and slender profile. In their quest for a perfect
canal-like river, engineers have modified it more than any other
large river in the world. As a consequence, between 1815 and 1975,
the river lost most of its natural floodplain, riverside
vegetation, migratory fish, and biodiversity. Recent efforts to
restore that biodiversity, though heartening, can have only limited
success because so many of the structural changes to the river are
irreversible. The Rhine: An Eco-Biography, 1815-2000 makes clear
just how central the river has been to all aspects of European
political, economic, and environmental life for the past two
hundred years.
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