ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 shows that after the rules and regulations for the Rhine regime had been established, the Commission was confronted with the problem that keeping the river safe for navigation required a continual flow of reliable, standardised, and up-to-date information on the geophysical character and the navigable conditions of the Rhine. In the 1830s, the politicised reports from the respective national authorities and the observational data from its administrative machine were therefore supplemented with the input from external technical experts. The discussion of what safety of navigation actually entailed led to the formation of a new range of norms such as transparency, reciprocity, predictability, and an increasing confidence in the human ability to govern a river in accordance with technological laws.
