E40 Inland Waterway

Why in news?

• Pripyat river is being drained as part of the E40 inland navigation project to connect the Baltic and Black Seas.

About E40 waterway:

• The E40 Inland Waterway (E40 IWW) is a transnational waterway project.
• It aims at establishing a 2,000 km Black-to-Baltic-Sea inland waterway.
• It will allow navigation of ocean going ships between the two seas.
• It will pass through Poland, Belarus and Ukraine connecting the seaports of Gdansk and Kherson.
• It consists of the following rivers and canals: Vistula, Bug (new canal to be built) Mukhavets, Pina, Pripyat and Dnieper.

Environmental concerns:

• The Pripyat river passes through Chernobyl exclusion zone, the site of the infamous nuclear reactor accident of 1986.
• It flows downstream into Dneiper river
• The dredging of the Pripyat river that began recently could put some 28 million people downstream at increased radiation risk.
• Changes to the hydrology of the region where E40 is being built — Polesia — could also dry out its peatlands which are important carbon sinks.
• According to environmental activists the E40 waterway will dry up rivers, damage landscapes, negatively impact wildlife and destroy the livelihoods of local people.

PRELIMS QUESTION

The E40 inland waterway project will connect which of the following water bodies:
(a)Aral sea and Black sea
(b)Black sea and Baltic Sea
(c)Caspian sea and Black sea
(d)Mediterranean sea and Caspian sea

Answer to prelims question