Drainage network development in the Pannonian Basin1 River and history The Danube has been involved in several significant events of world history, just to According to the archives, the word Danube mention some of them: Attila the Hun, the was already known as early as in the 7th cen- leader of the Hunnic Empire rushed along tury BC. The Greek called its lower river sec- the Danube (406–453 AD) as far as the tion situated between the Iron Gates and the Catalaunian Plains to fight with the Western Black Sea Ister. After occupying Illyria in 168 world. Charlemagne and his troops also BC, the Romans called the river Danubius and marched along the river to put down the they established that Ister and Danubius were reign of the Avars. The Danube is the second the same river. Julius Caesar used the name longest river in Europe (after the Volga). The Danube for the first time. The river was wor- total length of the river is 2,860 km, including shipped as a deity during the Roman Empire the Hungarian section as long as 417 km. The (Kádár, L. 1980). The word Danube is of Celtic 140-km-long river section between Oroszvár origin and it means “water”, “river”. It was and the Ipoly estuary (Szob) marks the bor- transmitted into the Hungarian language by der between Hungary and Slovakia. The the northern Slavic nations. Its foreign versions Danube reaches Hungary as a large river. (Danube, Donau, Danubio, Dunaj, Dunarea, Dunav, etc.) are of ancient origin as well. The headspring of the river Danube has The Hungarian section of the Danube not been known for so long as it would be expected. Herodotus (484–408 BC) believed As a result of river regulations, the that the source of the Danube was in the Hungarian section of the Danube is not en- Pyrenees. During the Second Punic War tirely navigable. The river regulations carried (218–201 BC) the Romans realized while they out at the end of the 19th century and at the were crossing the lower section of Rhone beginning of the 20th century converted the that Herodotus had been wrong. Later, natural river into an artificial channel. they suspected that the Danube originated The Danube enters the Little Hungarian in the mountains of Bretagne away from Plain at the meeting point of the Alps and the the Pyrenees. However, that presumption White Carpathians at 130 m a.s.l. After flow- was proved to be mistaken, too. The false ing through the so called “Porta Hungarica” assumption was clarified during the Gallic at Devin (today a district of Bratislava), the Wars (58–51 BC) waged by the Roman pro- Danube reaches the Little Hungarian Plain consul Julius Caesar who, however, did not transporting an immense amount of alluvial manage to find the spring of the Danube sediments (pebbles, sand, silt). The sediment and assumed that the river originated in the transport mainly results from floods, the fre- Southern Alps. In the end, the source of the quency of which has decreased significantly river, namely the Black Forest was discov- since the construction of the Austrian and ered only in 14–16 AD. Slovakian dams (Gabčíkovo Dams). 1 Firstly published: Schweitzer, F. 2015. Drainage network development in the Pannonian Basin. Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 64. 2. 101–119. 171 The largest European island can be found There are river sections where river down- in the Little Hungarian Plain. It is called cutting is as frequent as valley filling. In that “Golden Garden”, involving the Szigetköz case erosion and deposition alternate each as the Hungarian part and the Zitny Ostrov other. That’s why the valley is neither down (in Hungarian ‘Csallóköz’), as the Slovakian cut nor filled with alluvium to a great extent. part of the alluvial fan. The vicinity of the For example, between Bratislava (Slovakia) two regions is an endless plain, the surface of and Gönyű (Hungary) filling is the most which is built up of point bars. The Danube typical river function, therefore, most of the flows on the top of the alluvial fan where Danube sediment reaching the country are the main channel had changed its direction deposited there. The (relatively fast) fluvial quite frequently before the river regulation deposition resulted in the development of works. River bar evolution made the Danube anabranches. Between Gönyű and Komárom meander and change its flow resulting in the not only deposition but also transportation development of several alluvial fans. Thus, can be detected since the bedload is partly the Danube had no main channel even at the transported away. beginning of the 19th century. The huge alluvial fan consists of two types: The archeological findings confirm that the a younger, low-lying alluvial plain, involving navigable main channel of the Roman era is Szigetköz, the Moson Plain and the Hanság equivalent to the contemporary Moson Danube. Plain with the alluvial plain of River Rába. The region also serves as one of the most sig- The older and higher situated deltaic and nificant drinking water supply of the northern alluvial plain involves, among others, the part of the Transdanubia and the southern part Parndorf Plain and the Bana Hill (Figure 1). of Slovakia. The gold of the “Golden Garden” is At the northern edge of the Gerecse Hills, the drinking water itself. The main responsibil- the flood plain of the Danube becomes nar- ity of the authorities and the scientific world rower, at Esztergom it widens again, then in is to preserve that treasure. It is a fundamen- the Visegrád Gorge it is only narrow strips tal interest to restore the water balance prior following the river banks. Between Vác and to the construction of the Gabčíkovo Dams to Budapest the floodplain of the river is well- maintain and protect the strategic drinking wa- defined with clear boundaries, characterized ter supplies. The water regime and the water by embayments of various size. It follows the balance of the Danube are controlled mainly river, especially the left riverbank as far as by the precipitation received by the catchment the southern boundary of the country with areas of the Austrian Alps and Prealps as well a varying width (15–25 km). In many places, as the melt water of snow and glaciers. both on the right and left riverbanks, ex- tensive depressions occupy the floodplain (Bulla, B. 1941; Erdélyi, M. 1955; Pécsi, M. Fluvial land-forming processes of the 1959; Scheuer, Gy. and Schweitzer, F. 1984). Danube Some examples: the Kalocsa and the Baja Depressions on the left riverbank; the Érd, The immediate vicinity of the river is formed the Adony, the Paks-Tengelic-Sárköz and the by river-bed changes. The Hungarian sec- Mohács Depressions on the right riverbank tion of the river can be characterized by dissected by landslide-effected high bluffs of river down-cutting and valley filling. Upper 40–50 m height. Lots of islands are attached to courses are rare along the Hungarian section the feet of the bluffs which are the remnants of the river. Even the Visegrád Gorge cannot of larger landslides eroded by the Danube. be considered as a pure incising valley type The current Danube is flowing from North as point bars can be observed in several plac- to South. According to the geomorphologic es. Valley filling is not very frequent either, investigations and radiometric data, dur- rather a transient type of cutting and filling. ing the last interglacial period which was 172 Fig. 1. The area between the Parndorf Plain and the Bana Hill (by Pécsi, M. 1959) warm and humid, the direction of flow of be measured in decades and centuries but in the Danube was NW–SE, therefore the riv- geologic time. So it is not a coincidence that er was flowing through the Danube–Tisza the history of Central Europe’s largest river Interfluve. The direction of flow followed has been investigated for almost 150 years the series of depressions getting younger (Sóbányi, Gy. 1893; Halaváts, Gy. 1898; and younger southwards. However, the Cvijić, J. 1908, 1910; Lóczy, L. 1913; Strömpl, Danube changed its direction over time and G. 1913; Cholnoky, J. 1929; Noszky, J. 1933; started to erode the high bluffs of the right Prinz, Gy. 1936; Szádeczky-Kardoss, E. 1939; Danube riverbank descending in the direc- Bulla, B. 1941; Mottl, M. 1941; Mihálcz, I. tion of the Danube–Tisza Interfluve. The 1953; Sümeghy, J. 1953; Fink, J. and Majdan, area of high bluffs was as wide as 10–15 km H. 1954; Kádár, L. 1955; Kéz, A. 1956; Pécsi, and it stretched as far as the western edge of M. 1959; Scheuer, Gy. and Schweitzer, F. the current Danube–Tisza Interfluve 80,000– 1988; Gábris, Gy. 2006). 100,000 years ago. The Solt Hill and the Tétel During that period several theories have Hill are buttes representing the remnants of come into being. The aim has been to locate the former bluff of Mezőföld (Figure 2). the gravel deposits situated above 300–330 m The sand dunes of Illancs being an alluvial a.s.l. and below 100–110 m a.s.l. in time ac- fan (172 m a.s.l) also originate from Mezőföld. cording to the relevant scientific disciplines. The alluvial fan had evolved before the Most of the syntheses (Penck, A. 1894) are Danube changed its direction of flow. in connection with theories on climatically induced fluvial terraces classified by Alpine glacial chronology. Geomorphologists asso- The evolution of the Danube in brief ciate the evolution of the fluvial terraces of the Danube with the fluvial system changes The evolution of the “ancient” Danube as related to the last four major Alpine glacia- well as that of the current river have taken tions.