San-Dniester or Bug-Dniester Canal

BigBlueBox

Banned
Is it possible to build a canal that connects the San River to the Dniester or the Bug River to the Dniester? What would the costs and environmental effects be?
 
I'm not an engineer, but they aren't too far away from eachother so I suppose it could be possible. The main problems, IMO, are financial and political. First, why do we want to build a canal? Ukraine has a myriad of Black Sea ports while Poland has a myriad of Baltic ports. Ukraine and Poland already trade with eachother primarily by land (trucks, trains) and neither really use riverine transport for a significant portion of trade to my knowledge, of course, I don't know much about rivers so if this is not the case I'll stand to be corrected.

Political, Ukraine and Poland have very good relations right now, but there would be other issue at play here, local ones espeically aswell as issues regarding tariff policy etc. the EU might even get involved as they like to do. Financial, if the project is done by both governments which is paying? Would both pay equally? Ukraine would probably be the site of the most work (according to the maps I'm looking at) at we're kind of strapped for cash at the moment, would Poland pay more? Would they accept paying more?

Basically it would a political and budgetary hassle that neither government really wants to engage in as there isn't much reward that I can see. Though, I believe it is technically possible.
 

Insider

Banned
Is it possible to build a canal that connects the San River to the Dniester or the Bug River to the Dniester? What would the costs and environmental effects be?
The costs would be huge. The terrain starts to be hilly and canal unfriendly along the way, so it would require a lot of investments. Moreover the RIVERS that would be connected would require LOTS of work, to make any reasonably sized barges pass reliably. That would most likely eclipse the expense on canal in the first place.
I can imagine that done actually, just not after 1900. A stronger Habsburgs snatching more Ukraine in partition of Poland might need one, or alternatively a more westernward Russian Empire. ... Or we can go Poland Stronk and have surviving First Rzeczpospolita do it in XIX century. With PODs past XIX century, the reasonable thing to do is to build a double rail line instead.
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
The costs would be huge. The terrain starts to be hilly and canal unfriendly along the way, so it would require a lot of investments. Moreover the RIVERS that would be connected would require LOTS of work, to make any reasonably sized barges pass reliably. That would most likely eclipse the expense on canal in the first place.
I can imagine that done actually, just not after 1900. A stronger Habsburgs snatching more Ukraine in partition of Poland might need one, or alternatively a more westernward Russian Empire. ... Or we can go Poland Stronk and have surviving First Rzeczpospolita do it in XIX century. With PODs past XIX century, the reasonable thing to do is to build a double rail line instead.
The scenario I was thinking of was no WW2, and Poland, Romania, and maybe a few other countries funding the project jointly so that there was access from the Baltic to the Black Sea without going through Soviet territory. I guess that's not realistic?
 

Insider

Banned
The scenario I was thinking of was no WW2, and Poland, Romania, and maybe a few other countries funding the project jointly so that there was access from the Baltic to the Black Sea without going through Soviet territory. I guess that's not realistic?
Not entirely, just not optimal solution to the problem. However it is entirely within a realm of technical possibility. Some canals connecting Moselle are even higher and more precarious. Politicians could agree for it as display of pork barrel politics national cooperation. To next governments it would stand out as a display of stubbornness and stupidity. As I said before, canals ceased to be the thing in late XIX century, unless you plan to ship bulk cargoes. As for ecological impact, the fish and mollusc species would slowly migrate across the canal and settle new territories. Moreover upgrading Vistula, possibly Bug and Dniester would bring ire of ecological activist from our time. They have a lot of arguments against damming the rivers, and making them navigable. You could easily find them in the Net, however as the guy from other side of the barricade, I think they aren't worth shit, because they completely concentrate on what is lost, and not on what is gained, treating the new lakes and slow moving rivers as if they were lifeless desert.
 
Well, there's the
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnieper–Bug_Canal

Dniepr - Bug Canal that exists. Of course, it goes through Belarus....

I've got to say, looking at Google Maps, that the Bug as it gets near Lviv looks pretty darn tiny.


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Going all out crazy...
Take the Poltva tributary of the Bug all the way into Lviv. Then build a canal from Mosty on the Dniester to Lviv, some 60km

Or, even crazier.
Take the Holohirka River (which enters the Poltva just south of Busk, just before the latter joins the Bug)
Follow that up to Velyka Vil'shanytsya, and from there cut a canal 18km WSW to Univ, where you can join the Hnyla Lypa, which is a tributary of the Dniester. This route would follow the approximate route of roads H02 west, and then T1806 south.
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
Well, there's the
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnieper–Bug_Canal

Dniepr - Bug Canal that exists. Of course, it goes through Belarus....

I've got to say, looking at Google Maps, that the Bug as it gets near Lviv looks pretty darn tiny.


----
Going all out crazy...
Take the Poltva tributary of the Bug all the way into Lviv. Then build a canal from Mosty on the Dniester to Lviv, some 60km

Or, even crazier.
Take the Holohirka River (which enters the Poltva just south of Busk, just before the latter joins the Bug)
Follow that up to Velyka Vil'shanytsya, and from there cut a canal 18km WSW to Univ, where you can join the Hnyla Lypa, which is a tributary of the Dniester. This route would follow the approximate route of roads H02 west, and then T1806 south.
My reasoning for the purpose of the canal is a no WW2 timeline, where Poland wants an alternative to the Dniepr-Bug Canal because the Dniepr is in Soviet territory.
 

Insider

Banned
Well Polish a best translation for English "dick" is "chuj" (ch is read the same as h. It is remnant of an old vocabulary IMHO left only to make children fail orthography tests) . In Russian it is more with o than u so Hoj or Khoi would be a good approximation. And I ended up teaching people to swear in Slavic languages. Kurwa.
 
Is that a swear word? I googled "Khoi-San and the result I got was some ethnic group in Africa.
Ah. Well, it was the people in southern Africa (earliest surviving split in the human family try), that I was thinking of.
Once the possible connexion to Polish swearwords was mentioned, I think I vaguely recall hearing of that word before, but I was not trying to be obscene, just wildly off-topic.
 

Insider

Banned
Ah. Well, it was the people in southern Africa (earliest surviving split in the human family try), that I was thinking of.
Once the possible connexion to Polish swearwords was mentioned, I think I vaguely recall hearing of that word before, but I was not trying to be obscene, just wildly off-topic.
And I wasn't trying to be anal about it, just to point out that such name would get many laughs among locals.
The same reason is why Russians and Poles call Muslim Chinese the "Dungans", while Westerners and locals call them "Hui".
 
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