(VNF, en, Navigable Waterways of France) is the French navigation authority responsible for the management of the majority of

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

's inland

waterways A waterway is any navigable body of water. Broad distinctions are useful to avoid ambiguity, and disambiguation will be of varying importance depending on the nuance of the equivalent word in other languages. A first distinction is necessary b ...

network and the associated facilities—

towpath A towpath is a road or trail on the bank of a river, canal, or other inland waterway. The purpose of a towpath is to allow a land vehicle, beasts of burden, or a team of human pullers to tow a boat, often a barge. This mode of transport ...

s, commercial and

leisure Leisure has often been defined as a quality of experience or as free time. Free time is time spent away from business, work, job hunting, domestic chores, and education, as well as necessary activities such as eating and sleeping. Leisure ...

port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ham ...

s, lock-keeper's houses and other structures. VNF was established in 1991 and took over the responsibility for all waterways from the National Office of Navigation (french: Office National de la Navigation) in 1993. It is a public body and is under the control of the Minister of Ecology, Energy, Sustainable Development and Territorial Development (french: Ministère de l'Écologie, de l'Energie, du Développement durable et de l'Aménagement du territoire). The headquarters of VNF are in Béthune,

Pas-de-Calais Pas-de-Calais (, " strait of Calais"; pcd, Pas-Calés; also nl, Nauw van Kales) is a department in northern France named after the French designation of the Strait of Dover, which it borders. It has the most communes of all the departments ...

with local offices throughout France.

French waterways network

The French natural and man-made waterways network is the largest in Europe extending to over of which VNF manages the navigable sections. The assets managed by VNF comprise of waterways, made up of of

canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flow un ...

s and of navigable

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...

s, 494

dam A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of surface water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use, a ...

s, 1595 locks, 74 aqueducts, 65

reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...

s, 35 tunnels and a land area of . Two significant waterways which are not under VNF's control are the navigable sections of the

River Somme The Somme ( , , ) is a river in Picardy, northern France. The river is in length, from its source in the high ground of the former at Fonsomme near Saint-Quentin, to the Bay of the Somme, in the English Channel. It lies in the geological ...

and the Brittany Canals, which are both under local management, and neither is the River Lot in Aquitaine.

Enhancements

Approximately 20% of the network is suitable for commercial boats of over 1000

tonne The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the short ton ( United State ...

s and the VNF has an ongoing programme of maintenance and modernisation to increase depth of waterways, widths of locks and headroom under bridges to support France's strategy of encouraging freight onto water as part of her sustainable development programme—a survey by

Price Waterhouse Coopers PricewaterhouseCoopers is an international professional services brand of firms, operating as partnerships under the PwC brand. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is considered one of the Big Four accounting ...

showed that 75% of French companies were willing to switch to barge transport. A major current initiative is the cross-border

Seine–Nord Europe Canal The Seine–Nord Europe Canal is a planned high-capacity (''grand gabarit'') canal in France that would link the Oise River at Compiègne with the Dunkirk-Scheldt Canal, east of Arleux. It is the French part of a proposed Seine-Scheldt canal that ...

project, connecting the Seine and the

Scheldt The Scheldt (french: Escaut ; nl, Schelde ) is a river that flows through northern France, western Belgium, and the southwestern part of Netherlands, the Netherlands, with its mouth at the North Sea. Its name is derived from an adjective corr ...

, which will provide a continuous wide-gauge navigation from

Le Havre Le Havre (, ; nrf, Lé Hâvre ) is a port city in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region of northern France. It is situated on the right bank of the estuary of the river Seine on the Channel southwest of the Pays de Caux, very cl ...

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

References

External links

VNF website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Voies Navigables De France Water transport in France Government-owned companies of France Inland waterway authorities Transport authorities in France

French waterways network

Enhancements

See also

References

External links