Rhine drought leaves Germany on brink of shipping closure

Heatwave sends water level plunging at bottleneck in Kaub

Low water level rhine
Water levels in the Rhine have plunged to ‘extreme’ lows Credit: Federico Gambarini /DPA

The Rhine is on the brink of being closed to shipping traffic as water levels plunge towards "extreme" lows in a major blow for the German economy.

Water levels at the town of Kaub, a bottleneck point in one of Europe's most important transport arteries, have fallen beneath one metre as a heatwave grips the continent.

Forecasts suggest levels could soon reach 80cm, which would trigger an extreme alert and mean many vessels can no longer pass through.

The timing is particularly painful because of the energy crisis in Europe. Barges frequently use the Rhine to deliver fuel to factories and coal to German power plants.

Major companies based on the Rhine include chemical giant BASF, which uses it for cooling and transportation at its Ludwigshafen plant south of Frankfurt, and steel behemoth Thyssenkrupp.

The river runs for 766 miles, passing through Switzerland, France, Germany and the Netherlands. It is used by an estimated 6,900 vessels with a transport capacity of 10m tonnes.

Germany already experienced intense heat during June, with records broken at hundreds of monitoring stations.

The country’s National Meteorological Service has warned the heatwave will be especially intense in the south-west, with experts predicting highs of more than 40C next week in central and south Germany.

Warnings over the state of the Rhine came early this year, with water levels at Kaub previously falling below one metre in March following a dry winter – the first time they had done so since at least 2000, the earliest year for which data is available.

The full effects of a heatwave now may not be fully felt until autumn. After the summer heatwave in 2018 – which killed thousands of Rhine fish in Switzerland – water levels in Kaub went on to drop as low as 25cm in October.

That record low led chemicals producer Covestro to issue a profit warning amid soaring logistics costs, and forced BASF to close a facility. Officials in Berlin used its strategic oil reserves to try and cover the decline in shipments.

Other rivers are also being affected by the high temperatures. The Po – Italy’s longest river – has dried up amid the most severe drought in 70 years.

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