German shippers warn low water levels could sever Rhine trade route

Low water levels risk halting cargo traffic on a key stretch of the Rhine this week, effectively splitting the critical waterway into two separate zones, the federal association of German inland shipping (BDB) said on Monday.

BDB managing director Jens Schwanen told the Rheinische Post newspaper water levels at Germany's Kaub gauging station, a major bottleneck for Rhine navigation, were forecast to drop into single digits for the first time due to lack of rainfall.

Kaub lies south of the city of Koblenz at one of the shallowest sections on the Middle Rhine.

"Commercial shipping will no longer be able to transport goods in the region at such low water levels," he said. "The same goes for day trips and cruise shipping."

"In principle, the Rhine is then no longer navigable along its entire length and thus split in two," he added.

Schwanen said shipping would continue between the ports of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Antwerp, the northern part of the German Rhine and the west German canal network, and farther south there would be traffic on tributaries including the Main, Moselle and Neckar rivers and the Main-Danube Canal.

This weekend, Germany's most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, as well as Lower Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland relaxed trucking curbs to ease transport bottlenecks caused by low water levels on rivers including the Rhine.

-Writing by Dave Graham; Editing by Alison Williams/Reuters