A water bridge is a structure designed to cross water bodies by shipping. A body of water is understood as a river or an artificial canal. A water bridge cannot cross rail or road tracks, as it is more economical to build a road bridge over a river than a water bridge over a road.
What is a water bridge
Typically, a water bridge is located above the intersected body of water and looks like a water channel intended for the passage of navigable vehicles. Most often, there are stair locks or ship lifts in front of the water bridge, which are designed to raise the vessel to a certain level. That is, the majority of reservoirs equipped with water bridges are a general artificially closed system, in which there are locks, where the vessel rises or falls to a new level and crosses the reservoir that it has recently walked across.
What are water bridges for?
The water bridge is exclusively for ships and sometimes for the transport of water. It allows barges and ships to cross the river perpendicularly. It would seem, why build a water bridge over the river, if you can connect both water systems into one? But not everything is so simple, because different reservoirs can have different water levels. It is to solve this problem that locks and ship lifts are being built. And by connecting all the rivers into one system, you may not get the desired navigable canal.
That is, the whole system using a water bridge looks like this: a barge with a cargo floats along one river, while it must get into a port located on another river, these rivers do not intersect or generally have different levels. The barge enters the lock, where the water level changes, and the vessel is able to sail in the desired direction.
All water bridges are built exclusively from reinforced concrete, since concrete is able to interact with moisture for a long time and does not collapse, subject to constant moisture. But during construction, special waterproofing is also used, which excludes direct contact of water with the entire structure.
Magdeburg bridge
The most famous water bridge was built in Germany and is 918 meters long. It is called the Magdeburg Bridge. The structure connects the Central German Canal with the Elbe-Havel Canal and serves for the movement of cargo ships.
Despite the fact that the idea of building this water bridge was born back in 1887, because of the military conflicts that happened in the 20th century, the construction process was postponed many times. It was only built and put into operation by 2003. More than half a billion euros were spent on the implementation of this grandiose idea.
Now the bridge is one of the most popular sights in Germany. For tourists, even a small museum is open, which provides historical information regarding the construction of the Magdeburg Bridge.
