In 448 A.D., the Seine played a crucial role when Geneviève de Lutèce broke through Attila's blokade using ships loaded with wheat to save Parisians from starving. This success story was repeated in 885-886 when Count Eudes managed to defeat the Viking's siege of Paris.
But the sailing talents of the Scandinavians had left such a bitter memory on the Parisians that, when the Vikings came back, they urged Charles the Fat to allow the Vikings to pillage Burgundy. Finally, in 911, Charles III (the Simple) had to give up Normandy to the Viking Chief Rollo in exchange for Paris and safe navigation on the Seine.
During the Middle Ages, millers and sailors argued over use of the rivers: up to 10 000 mills were built, thus altering the natural course of the waterways. However navigation remained such a priority for populations living along the Seine that it wasn't until the 17th century, under Henry IV that the first permanent bridge could be built. Nevertheless, Paris was already home to 200 000 inhabitants. The bridge was named the "Pont Neuf". River navigation remained the main means of transport right up to the end of the 19th century : during the Universal Exhibition of Paris in 1900, more than 42 million passengers actually sailed into the port of Paris. Today, navigation through the basin still accounts for half of all French river traffic.
From the 1850s onwards, the population of the basin grew twice as fast as the national average. The current population of the Seine-Normandy river basin has reached 17 million, and as much as 80% of the total is concentrated around urban areas. Moreover, 65% of the population live today in the Ile de France Region, which covers barely 12% of the basin. Therefore, population densities range from 18/km2 in the sub-basin of the Aube River to more than 20 000/km2 in the center of Paris.
This crowding in Paris contributed to four major epidemics of cholera between 1832 and 1866, which killed 60 000 people in Paris alone. These events did not draw the public's attention to the natural environment; rather they focused exclusively on public health. Individual water consumption by Parisians during the next 100 years grew from 15 to 300 liters/day; mainly due to treatment by chlorination. The degradation of rivers intensified due to flood protection works and untreated wastewater discharges from the sewers. Before the Second World War, Parisians were even considering pouring concrete over their river to make it an airstrip or a large motorway in the heart of their city.
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UNESCO.ORG
