Summer of extremes: Historic low water levels on the Rhine
"Cycle of nature - it is getting dry" was our headline just over a year ago in April 2025 in view of the "low water" of the Rhine at that time. Global warming and, as a consequence, altered rainfall patterns and the absence of snowmelt are increasingly causing the regular flow patterns of the Rhine to change.
In the summer of 2026, the situation is currently particularly extreme: just 46cm is the measured water level on the Cologne gauge (Kölner Pegel) these days, and the shipping channel there is less than 1.6m deep. The Cologne gauge has never been this low before.
A few kilometres downstream from the Rhine near Dormagen, the shipwreck of the eel trawler (Aalschokker) is pictured at three points in time of low water levels on the Rhine – currently it lies dry on the sandbank; a sight that has never occurred since its accident at the end of the last millennium.
A symbol.
