The triennial IS Rivers conference is an international meeting that seeks to bring together the world of scientific research and practitioners working on rivers and large waterways. The aim is to combine multidisciplinary approaches and promote dialogue between the various stakeholders. The AIVP, represented by Noémi Mené, Project Manager for River Port Cities, presented the European Connected River project during a session on the impacts of river navigation on rivers.
The Connected River project seeks to develop simple and easy-to-implement solutions to promote shared use of waterways, particularly with river transport. Noémi Mené presented the experiments conducted in Nijmegen (The Netherlands), Vordingborg (Denmark) and on the Kleine Nete (Belgium).
The presentation was followed by a lively discussion, demonstrating the genuine interest of the academic and professional communities in these issues of shared use, with specific requests relating to urban swimming. This topic was the subject of a session earlier in the morning and raised a number of questions about how to ensure the safety of swimmers in relation to river transport activities. The question of replicating the experiments was also raised in light of varying European legislation.
This excellent conference, very well organized by GRAIE and the Rhône Basin Workshop Area, provided an opportunity to reflect on the challenges of river renaturation, the challenges surrounding hydroelectric power generation, and more broadly, the links between humans and waterways.
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