In earlier reports, traffic on the Rhine was analysed on the basis of data for the “traditional Rhine”, meaning the traffic between Basel and the German-Dutch border, provided by the German statistical institute Destatis. This concept did not take into account the transport of goods on the Dutch Rhine and in the Dutch Rhine Delta. As the Dutch Rhine forms a delta, the expressions “Dutch Rhine” and “Dutch Rhine Delta” are used synonymously.
As a result of cooperation with Rijkswaterstaat, it has now become possible to include freight transport in the Dutch Rhine Delta, and therefore to report on transport volumes on the entire Rhine from Basel to the North Sea. To this end, it was first necessary to define the geographical scope of the data collection and the waterways in the Netherlands that form part of the Rhine. The waterways considered were the following: Waal, Hollands Diep, Boven-Merwede, Oude Maas, Dordtsche Kil, Beneden-Merwede, Lek, Nieuwe Maas, Noord, Nieuwe Merwede, Nieuwe Waterweg, Amsterdam-Rijnkanaal, Rhine-Scheldt link, Hartelkanaal, IJssel.
The link between the Rhine delta and the port of Antwerp was also taken into account (Rhine-Scheldt link), which contributes in particular to the high volumes of petroleum products and chemicals observed on the Dutch Rhine.
To be able to represent transport activity on the Rhine as a whole, it was also necessary to develop the appropriate methodology, especially in order to avoid any risk of double counting of volumes transported on the different Rhine stretches. This risk arose above all from the fact that the volumes transported on the traditional Rhine came largely from Dutch and Belgian seaports. It was therefore necessary to avoid double counting of volumes recorded in the Dutch Rhine Delta (Rijkswaterstaat data) which are already accounted for within the traditional Rhine (Destatis data). Thus, volumes already counted as part of traditional Rhine traffic were excluded from the Dutch Rhine data (Rijkswaterstaat data). This was done by excluding all the volumes to and from Germany and Switzerland.
