Inland vessels enable environmentally friendly cargo transport. Rivers, however, are not only considered commercial waterways but also serve a variety of other purposes including energy production, flood protection, recreation, tourism and drinking water supply.

In order to both support inland navigation and conserve the Danube habitat, via donau pursues an integrated as well as sustainable approach in all its waterway engineering and development projects.

A major tool in the development of sustainable waterway projects, integrated planning takes into account ecological aspects, the different kinds of waterway use and existing statutory requirements to create a win-win situation for both inland navigation and the environment and to secure a cross-sector exchange of knowledge.

The Integrated River Engineering Project on the Danube to the East of Vienna is a sample case for the integrated planning approach pursued by via donau for the Danube waterway. The realisation of the project ensures both the protection of the Danube Floodplain National Park as well as stable navigation conditions for inland vessels on a year-round basis.

The project focuses on the implementation of ecologically oriented river engineering measures, such as re-linking cut-off side arms, removing bank armouring, removing and optimising groynes (rigid structures built from a bank to influence flow conditions) and realising granulometric riverbed improvement (through the addition of coarse gravel to certain spots along the riverbed in order to raise the water level).