PUBLIC INTEREST WITHIN PROJECTS OF TRAFFICLY SIGNIFICANT WATER STRUCTURES

ABSTRACT

The paper is focused on the assessment of the public interest in the case of carrying out of investment projects on waterways. The realization of projects on waterways has very wide spectra of whole societal impacts, which include technical, economic, environmental and in some cases also historical aspects of investing. The objective of the paper is to introduce methodological steps for the evaluation of partial variants of investment project on the waterway from the point of view of the predominant public interest, which is judged based on the evaluation of four areas representing the public interest. It is about economic impacts including investment costs, operational costs and the economic evaluation of induced changes in biotopes, environmental impacts including influences on protected animals and plants, important landscape elements or underground waters, technical impacts connected with the usefulness of chosen technical solutions and historical impacts related to the possible removing of immovable technical monument. The special interest is given to the last issue, where the way of the historical value of the immovable technical monument assessment, which consequently serves as one of the partial inputs for the evaluation of particular project variants from the aspect of the predominant public interest, is solved. The methodology of evaluation is based on principles of the multi-criterial analysis. Methodological steps are consequently verified on the case study of the revitalization of the section of the river intended for the water transport and immovable historical monument in the form of the historical water power plant, the bridgeboard and the sailing chamber.

Keywords: Economic Efficiency, Waterways, Predominant Public Interest