New Danube

The New Danube is a side channel built 1972-88 on the eastern side of the Danube in Vienna, Austria. It was created to provide flood relief by containing excess water. The Donauinsel, made out of the removed material, separates the new waterway from the main channel of the river. The project was referred to by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme as "the first truly multipurpose fully sustainable flood protection scheme."The New Danube flows parallel to the river for approximately 21km through the Vienna metropolitan area. It diverges from the main channel in Langenzersdorf in Lower Austria, flows through the 21st district, and rejoins it at the Danube-Auen National Park in the 22nd district . The channel is about 150m wide; the island varies between 70and in width. The current course of the New Danube and the site of the Danube Island were previously a broad landscape of meadows set aside as a floodplain in the first effort to manage Danube floods, in 1868 - 75. The left, northern bank of the New Danube is protected by the Hubertus Dam, completed in 1875.Following disastrous flooding in Vienna in 1954, years of discussion led to a new plan for regulating the Danube involving creating a relief channel and a long barrier island. Construction began in 1972 and was completed only in 1988.