Dissolving: The Danube Bend at Béda

IN HUNGARIAN

Planum exhibens Sectionem Fluvii Danubii
a Sylvula Possessionis Baar usque Sylvam Gerétz Hát dictam...
(source: maps.hungaricana.com)

It took several steps and some river regulation engineering to move the Béda forest from the Danube-Tisza Intefluve to Transdanubia. The plan of the "moving" appears on a map from 1803, with all the planned meander cuts to achieve a shortened channel. However, the Danube thought differently than the engineers. Even today, the Danube is not following in the straight ditches dug on the course of the lines; for example a forest is hiding one dry ditch just east of Kölked, southern Hungary. Elsewhere, the Danube did not exactly follow the planned new course; instead of a shortened channel the Danube formed a new river bend, the Inner-Béda inside the Béda forest: while the 1803 course became the Outer-Béda oxbow. The Inner-Béda later also became an oxbow after successfully implementing another straight cut.

Just south from the Béda, the Bok meander and peninsula was also transferred to the Transdanubian side with the same method. The neck at Verpolya has been cut and the onetime peninsula became accessible from Erdőfű. Somewhat bigger territory switched sides than it was planned in 1803 and the river also refused to follow its new course, leaving some room for meandering. 

The previously continuously meandering Outer-Béda froze motionless, at the exact time it was cut off from the main river bed. After 200 years its width narrowed but the  course remains the same.