This is climate change.

The level of the Rhine just south of Mainz is normally halfway up the bank I’m standing on.

No rain to speak of since March (14ml in March and then 11, 33, 36 and 21 so far this month) means that the level of the river sinks to the point where barges can only be loaded to 30% to 40% of their capacity and the vehicular ferries that shuttle across the river every 20km or so are starting to cease operations.

Some have diggers that deepen the channels to let them dock, but that’s a matter of last resort.

And bridges are close to 100km apart.

BASF, major chemical company transports 30% of its raw materials in on barges and ships the same proportiion of finished product out by the same mode.

You might see that this could be a problem….

20 Jul This entry was published on 20 July, 2026 at 18:00 and is filed under Commerce, Mainz, Weather. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.