Estimating the impact of a new bridge over the river Danube

The impact of a new bridge over the Danube was estimated using a 3-step road transport model, as at the time no multimodal model was available. Different forecasts have been considered for both scenarios without the project and with the project. Also, sensitivity tests have been carried out in order to assess the impact of various bridge tolls. At the end, time savings and emissions have been estimated.

The Matuyama—Brunhes boundary in the loess-palaeosol sequence of Dolynske, southern Ukraine

We present the results of a palaeomagnetic study of the Early—Middle Pleistocene deposits exposed on the left bank of the River Danube at Dolynske, southern Ukraine. A thick succession of water-lain facies is succeeded by stratigraphically complete loess-palaeosol sequence; these constitute a unique palaeoclimate archive in the southern margin of the East European loess province. The Matuyama—Brunhes boundary (MBB) has been detected at the bottom of the Lower Shyrokyne (S7S3) subunit and not in the Martonosha (S6) unit as previously thought. New data align with previous results from the Roksolany and Vyazivok sections, where the MBB was determined at the same stratigraphical level in the S7S3 soil. In contrast to terrestrial Pleistocene records in China and сentral Europe, where the MBB was regularly determined in a loess layer (representing a cold period), the MBB in the Ukrainian subaerial succession is located in the soil unit (representing a warm period). Furthermore, eight, and not seven, glacial-interglacial cycles are recorded in the Brunhes chron. This may indicate the stratigraphic completeness of the loess-soil succession of Ukraine, which can be compared with the reference global marine and terrestrial palaeoclimatic archives. Further palaeomagnetic studies of loess-palaeosol sequences of other regions of Ukraine will allow revision and correlation of still inconsistent stratigraphic and magnetostratigraphic schemes of the Pleistocene deposits.

Ichthyofauna of the lower course of the Prut river (Larga river sector (KM 120) - confluence with river Danube)

The present written work represents the results of the research of the ichthyofauna from the lower course of the Prut River (including the Manta puddle and the Beleu lake) in terms of succession. It was established that, as a result of anthropogenic actions (drying of over 27-30 thousand ha of puddles, dam of the banks of the Prut River and its tributaries, extraction of sand and river stone from the minor riverbed, irreversible use of water in irrigation and industries, pollution, construction of the Costești-Stânca dam, destruction of wood cuts for lithifile and phytophilic species, etc.) in the ichthyofauna on the lower course of the Prut River, there were significant changes in diversity, quantitative and qualitative composition, and functional status of fish populations.

Dynamics of coexistence of Slavic, Hungarian and German oikonyms of the Žitný ostrov area

Today, Žitný ostrov is a bilingual Slovak-Hungarian territory along the river Danube and the Little Danube, and since the 10th century it has been formed as a multi-ethnic space. The recently completed diachronic research on hydronymy in this area has created the conditions for a more comprehensive study of the dynamics of ethnic relations in the oikonymy of the region. The article presents an analysis of medieval oikonyms, documented from the beginning of the 12th century. It brings a linguistic reconstruction of originally Slavic names, adopted and adapted by the Hungarian and occasionally also by the German ethnic population, and an analysis of original Hungarian and German oikonyms. The presented results specify i) the knowledge of the development of demographics of the area, ii) the extent of foreign ethnic interventions in the onymic system, iii) ethnic and interlingual relations, iv) the mode of interlingual adaptation of older oikonyms (Slovak – Hungarian, Slovak – German, Hungarian – German, German – Slovak, and finally Hungarian – Slovak), and v) the extent and forms of coexistence of Slovak, Hungarian and German oikonyms in the Middle Ages with an overlap to the present.

Sedimentary microplastic concentrations from the Romanian Danube River to the Black Sea

A multitude of recent studies have detailed microplastic concentrations in aquatic and terrestrial environments, although questions remain over their ultimate fate. At present, few studies have detailed microplastic characteristics and abundance along a freshwater–marine interface, and considerable uncertainties remain over the modelled contribution of terrestrial and riverine microplastic to the world’s oceans. In this article, for the first time, we detail sedimentary microplastic concentrations along a River–Sea transect from the lower reaches of a major continental river, the River Danube, through the Danube Delta, the Black Sea coast to the Romanian and Bulgarian inner shelf of the Black Sea. Our results indicate that isolated areas of the Danube Delta are still relatively pristine, with few microplastic particles in some of the sediments sampled.

Mass appearance of the Ponto-Caspian invader Pontogammarus robustoides in the River Tisza catchment: bypass in the southern invasion corridor?

The river Danube is the backbone of the ‘southern invasion corridor’, one of the most important passages for the spread of Ponto-Caspian invaders in Europe. However, not all of these species used the passive or active upstream movement in the main channel to reach the upper sections and tributaries, some found detours. Mass occurrences of the Ponto-Caspian peracarid, Pontogammarus robustoides (Sars, 1894) were recorded at 17 sites along the entire Hungarian section of the River Maros, for the first time in the River Tisza catchment and also in Hungary. Those populations are found ca. 707 km upstream from the closest known and confirmed locality in the lower Danube section. We confirmed their identity by DNA barcoding and showed that all individuals fit in with the lower Danube population, thus identifying the source of this introduction. The most likely vector allowing the jump dispersal of the species is fish stocking in the Romanian section of the River Maros, which − combined with downstream drift to the Serbian Danube section and the relatively busy ship traffic between Belgrade and Vienna − might provide the opportunity to bypass the dispersal barrier represented by the unregulated Middle Danube and open the way towards Western Europe.