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ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF THE
GABCIKOV BARRAGE SYSTEM USING SATELLITE REMOTE SENSING TECHNIQUES
Project Team:
Scot E. Smith, Associate
Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Florida
Lajos Horvath, Head, Water Quality Department, North Trandanubian Water
District Authority
Ferenc Szilagyi, Professor, Water Cehmistry Department, Technical
University of Budapest
Georgy Buttner, Senior Scientist, FOMI National Remote Sensing Centre, Budapest
Project Sponsors:
The National Science Foundation of the United States, the Hungarian Acadaemy
of Sceince and the Hungarian Environemntal Protection Ministry.
Project Description:
After thirty years of planning and construction, a hydroelectric power
system known as the Gabcikovo Barrage System (GBS) was completed on a section
of the Danube River
between Hungary and the Slovak Republic
(formally Czechoslovakia)
in 1995. However, in 1992, prior to diversion of water for the power channel,
Hungary
requested that the project be halted due to concern for potential
environmental impacts. Slovakia,
citing that the project was too far along to be abandoned, unilaterally
completed the system in 1996.
The potential and immediately-realized environmental impacts of the GBS in
Hungary and Slovakia are
examined in this project. An objective analysis of the actual and potential
environmental impacts is timely due to the fact that a great deal of
unsubstantiated information currently is being publicized which serves
neither Hungary nor Slovakia well. The decision to build the GBS was made
during the era when eastern European countries such as Hungary and Czechoslovakia
wanted to copy the enormous dam construction works conducted on large rivers
in the Soviet Union such as the Volga and
the Dneper. Now is an appropriate time when a critical assessment as to the
feasibility and environmental consequences of civil projects such as this one
built during the communist era can be performed.
This project examines the GBS project and concerns expressed for its short
and long-term environmental impacts. It further describes preliminary results
from a study that used satellite remote sensing techniques for assessing
changes in agricultural, forested and river bed lands since diversion of
water for the dam system in 1992.
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