Hungary is in a privileged position for both commercial inland shipping and recreational boating, with many gently-sloping and readily navigated rivers in the vast Hungarian plain. The Danube runs through the heart of the country, from km 1858 to km 1433, a distance of 425km, of which the first 150km is shared with Slovakia on the left bank. The Tisza, the most important left bank tributary of the Danube, also runs north-south through vast, fertile plains, and has seen extensive multi-purpose development, although the value of the works completed to date is restricted by the long detour via Serbia to navigate from one river to the other. Hence the long-standing Hungarian project for a Danube-Tisza Canal. A further limiting factor (which also applies in many other regions of Europe), is the aggravation of summer low-water levels due to large-scale flow diversion for irrigation. This makes navigability particularly uncertain in the free-flowing lower reaches around Szeged…