The Danube: On the Environmental History, Present, and Future of a Great European River

Abstract

In treating [the river] as a machine we have literally and conceptually disassembled the river. It has become to its users a set of separate spaces and parts. Fishermen see habitat. Irrigators see water. Power managers, utility operators, and those who run aluminium factories see reservoirs necessary to turn turbines. Barge owners see channels with certain depths of water. Environmentalists see brief stretches of free-flowing water. All stake a social claim to their part of the machine. None of them are concerned with the river as a whole."