At Kaub on the Rhine, the average depth is normally just over two metres, around 20 July the depth was closer to 70 centimetres. Water levels are also unusually low in many other locations.
This in turn means that the barges on the Rhine have to go with less cargo, at Kaub they could use around half of their cargo capacity. The situation is similar on the Danube and other rivers, and there is concern about how the situation will affect the industry so important to Germany. Around 195 million tonnes are transported annually on waterways in Germany, most of it on the Rhine.
Approaching previous record lows
There are now warnings that the situation is approaching that of 2018. Then the water level was at a record low and traffic was disrupted for 132 days. The industrial giant Basf had to cut back on parts of production due to missing shipments. This in turn led to effects on other industries and by extension on the German economy.
– In the second half of 2018, the low water lasted so long that it actually had macroeconomic consequences. At that time, the manufacturing industry made a loss of about 1-7 to 1.5 percent of production, says Volker Wieland, professor of economics at Goethe University in Frankfurt.
Then a number of companies had to reduce production, approximately every third company that was affected received 50 percent higher transport costs.
See how it looks today in the clip above.