River in northern France, the Seine has been the hub of Paris., UPSC.

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Context: The swimming leg of the men’s triathlon event in the ongoing Paris Olympics was postponed, over concerns regarding River Seine’s water quality.

Details

Name	The Seine
Country	France’s second-longest river.
Flow	It flows through Paris before emptying into the English Channel at Le Havre. As the Seine nears Paris, it is joined by one of its largest tributaries, the Marne, on the right bank. It eventually flows into the English Channel, a part of the Atlantic Ocean that separates northern France from southern England.
Source	Source-Seine in northeastern Burgundy, Langres Plateau, France.
Mouth	The Seine Estuary between Le Havre and Honfleur at the English Channel, arm of Atlantic ocean.
Length	754 km
Basin	75,976 km²
Tributaries	Left: Yonne, Loing, Eure, Risle. Right: Ource, Aube, Marne, Oise, Epte.
Major Dams	Lac d’Orient, Lac des Settons, Lake Der-Chantecoq, and Auzon-Temple and Amance.
Major Cities	Troyes, Melun, Paris, Mantes-la-Jolie, Rouen, Le Havre.
Estuary	The estuary experiences the phenomenon of the tidal bore, which is known as the mascaret, although continued dredging since 1867 has deepened the river so that the mascaret has gradually diminished.
UNESCO World Heritage Sites on the Seine River	Le Havre, Palace and Park of Versailles, Chartres Cathedral, Palace of Fontainebleau, Provins. In 1991, UNESCO added the banks of the Seine in Paris—the Rive Gauche and Rive Droite—to its list of World Heritage Sites in Europe.
Pollution threat	Untreated sewage being directly discharged into during heavy rain leading to increase in concentration of the bacteria E. coli in the river.
Initiatives taken	Swimming in the Seine had been banned since 1923. In 2015, the French government invested $ 1.5 billion in a project to clean up the river. Creation of a giant underground rainwater storage tank.
Flooding	The 1910 Great Flood of Paris. 2016 and 2018 Paris’s last major flooding.

Current Olympics Situation

Paris is hosting the Olympics for the third time. The first was in 1900, and the second was held in 1924.
The two disciplines namely swimming and triathlon are scheduled to take place in the Seine.
The river’s cleanliness is currently compromised by issues such as failures in the sewage network, sewage dumping during the rainy season, and houses lacking connections to the sewage system.
The goal is to get the river clean enough so that high-performance competitions can take place normally.

Sources:

Indian Express: Reference link, Wikipedia, Britanica, Save the water,

PRACTICE QUESTION

Q. Consider the following rivers.

1. Danube River

2. Dnieper River

3. Seine River

4. Rhine River

How many of the above River/s flows into Black Sea?

A. Only one

B. Only two

C. Only three

D. All four

Answer B

Danube River and Dnieper River drains into the Black Sea.