Elbe–Weser waterway

The Elbe–Weser waterway (German: Elbe-Weser-Schifffahrtsweg) or Elbe–Weser shipping channel is a short-cut between the rivers Elbe and Weser in North Germany which is part-canal and part-river. It has a length of 54.7 kilometres (34.0 mi) and is designed for smaller coastal vessels. It includes some 60 kilometres (37 mi) of canal dykes and 45 kilometres (28 mi) of canal paths. The channel starts in Otterndorf with the Hadeln Canal, then becomes the Bederkesa-Geeste Canal from the town of Bad Bederkesa to the River Geeste, the final leg of the shipping channel, which flows into the Weser at Bremerhaven. It is owned by the state of Lower Saxony, maintained by the NLWKN from its Stade office. Today they just look after maintenance of the drainage system, because the economic element of the canal – commercial shipping which was particularly thriving in the late 1960s – declined increasingly from 1973 onwards and today hardly exists at all. Nevertheless, the waterway is still used by smaller yachts as a short cut between Elbe and Weser.