The River Rhine has dropped to record low levels at several points in Germany and the Netherlands as prolonged heatwave conditions grip Europe, raising concerns about disruption to shipping, industry and agriculture on the continent's major waterways. Other key rivers, including the Danube and Italy's Po, have also fallen to historic or near-historic lows, prompting warnings from EU drought monitors and forcing countries to take emergency measures to protect power supplies and drinking water.

Record lows were recorded last week in Cologne and at Lobith, where the Rhine enters the Netherlands, while Germany's monitoring system found 44% of Rhine gauging stations and 78% of those on the Danube showed extremely low water levels by the end of July. At the Kaub chokepoint near Koblenz, navigable depth matched the 2018 record low of 25cm before easing slightly, threatening higher shipping costs and supply bottlenecks. The Danube's lowest levels in 30 years forced Hungary to shut its only nuclear plant and led Serbia to cut coal power output, while Romania blasted rock from the riverbed to boost flow to its Cernavoda plant; Italy's Po has also seen seawater intrude upriver, damaging farmland irrigation.