As per reports, the German Federal Association for Inland Waterway Shipping has warned on Monday (10 August) that critically low water levels on the Rhine River are expected to halt commercial freight traffic along a key stretch of the waterway this week and effectively split the river into two non-connected navigable zones.

• The Managing Director of the association, Jens Schwanen, stated that water levels at the Kaub gauge station are expected to fall into single-digit centimetre figures for the first time due to the prolonged absence of rainfall.
• Water levels at the Kaub gauge were approximately 40 centimetres as of mid-July 2026, already historically low for that period, and have continued to decline. At around 40 centimetres, commercial shipping is typically suspended or operates in emergency mode.
• Commercial cargo shipping, day-trip vessels and cruise shipping will no longer be able to operate in the affected stretch of the Middle Rhine if water levels fall to projected levels.
• Shipping between the ports of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Antwerp, the northern section of the German Rhine and the West German canal network is expected to continue.
• Freight movement in the southern section will be redirected to tributaries including the Main, Moselle and Neckar rivers and the Main-Danube Canal.
• As of Monday (10 August), the states of North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland have relaxed road trucking restrictions to ease transport bottlenecks caused by low water levels on rivers including the Rhine, in an effort to absorb displaced freight onto road networks.