Extreme weather is drying up Europe’s rivers in a crisis so dire it can be seen from space

By Laura Paddison, CNN

(CNN) — Relentless heat and a dearth of rain are having a punishing effect on some of Europe’s most vital rivers. The waterways have tumbled to record lows in places, in a crisis so severe it can be seen from space.

Stark satellite images reveal dramatically shrunken waterways weaving through parched landscapes. Low water levels have exposed vast stretches of riverbanks, as well as long sandbars usually hidden deep beneath the surface.

Comparisons with 2023, when European river flows were generally around average, show just how diminished some of these key waterways are.

Europe is the planet’s fastest-warming continent, and its summers are becoming ever more extreme as the human-caused climate crisis drives unprecedented high temperatures. Successive, brutal heat waves have sucked moisture from soils and waterways and continued drought has meant little relief.

The impacts are huge; Europe’s rivers are vital arteries transporting goods, cooling power plants, generating hydroelectric energy, drawing in tourists and providing a vital habitat for wildlife. As they shrink, people, economies and ecosystems are suffering.

Europe’s rivers frequently plunge to low levels in summertime — but this year they have reached unprecedented levels in places. Two of the continent’s most critical waterways, the Danube and the Rhine, have been particularly badly affected.

The Danube, Europe’s second-longest river, which winds through 10 countries on its journey from Germany to the Black Sea, has fallen to record lows in Hungary.

Water levels in Budapest sunk to 4 inches Monday, shattering the previous record low of 13 inches set in 2018, according to the Associated Press. The city is bracing for triple digit temperatures this week as another heat wave scorches Central and Eastern Europe, driving fears that levels could drop even further.

The shrinking Danube has led to an energy crisis in Hungary. The Paks nuclear power plant, which generates nearly half of the country’s electricity and uses Danube water for cooling, is operating at roughly 10% capacity after low water levels forced all but one of its reactors offline. There are fears it will be forced to close completely if river levels keep shrinking.

Hungary’s Prime Minister Péter Magyar has thanked households and industry for voluntary reductions in their power consumption during peak evening hours.

Romania is also facing energy challenges. On Monday, the country’s naval forces used explosives to blast through rock in an effort to redirect water from the Danube River to the sole working reactor at its Cernavodǎ nuclear plant.

The country’s state water management agency now has plans to sink two rock-filled barges in a branch of the Danube to build a temporary dike to divert more water to the plant, Reuters reported Tuesday.

Shrunken rivers are also affecting tourism, forcing some river cruises to cancel or alter services. A cruise ship ran aground on a sandbank in the Danube in Bulgaria last week.

And as the river shrinks, it’s revealing historical artifacts. Last week the remains of what’s believed to be an ancient mammoth were discovered in northern Bulgaria and a sunken Nazi warship has been revealed in Serbia.

The Rhine, which starts in the Swiss Alps and flows northward to empty out in the North Sea, is also at critical lows. The river is a key transport artery for everything from food and minerals to coal and oil.

Low winter snowfall in the Alps combined with a lack of rain and five distinct heat waves affecting large parts of the Rhine basin have caused the low river levels, said Massimiliano Zappa, a hydrologist at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research.

Water levels at the critical river chokepoint of Kaub, near Koblenz in western Germany, were at 9 inches on Wednesday. Before this year, the record low was 9.3 inches set in 2018, according to Reuters, citing Germany’s Federal Waterways and Shipping Administration.

River levels are so low that commercial ships have had to reduce their loads by as much as 80% to avoid running aground. It’s disrupting supply chains and making shipping more expensive.

“Shipments by barge are severely restricted, and vessels are operating with significantly reduced cargo loads,” a spokesperson for chemical company Lanxess told Reuters on Monday. “As some loading and unloading points can no longer be reached, we are switching to rail and road transport wherever possible.”

Record lows were also recorded in the western German city of Cologne, and at Lobith, where the Rhine crosses from Germany into the Netherlands.

Other European rivers are also suffering, including the Po in Italy and the Loire in France, both of which are exceptionally low in parts.

Scientists warn that these record river lows are likely to be broken again and again in the future. “As the climate continues to warm, the hydrological extremes we are now experiencing will only be the tip of the iceberg,” said Richard Allan, a climate science professor at the University of Reading in England. “Managing water resources will become progressively more challenging.”

The only way to limit these extremes, he added, is to “rapidly cut greenhouse gases across all sectors of society and support long term policies rather than short-term fire fighting.”

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