FRANKFURT, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- River cruises have long been popular among tourists who can make a quick visit to towns along the river. Cities like Kaub, home to a famous castle right in the middle of the Rhine River called Pfalzgrafenstein, thrive on booming tourism business.
"Cruise passengers enjoy visiting our castles and tasting local delicacies," Bernd Vogt, mayor of the city Kaub, told Xinhua on Monday.
The 68-year-old who has been living in Kaub since his birth is concerned that fewer tourists are showing up in Kaub this year because the section of the river where Kaub is located has become barely navigable due to low water levels.
The long spell of dry weather is bringing down the water levels of Rhine River as extreme heat waves hit Europe this year. "I am 68 years old now, and I have never seen the river this low here before. I have never experienced temperatures of around 40 degrees (Celsius) here before."
The water level reading at the Kaub gauge stood at just 15 centimeters on Monday, breaking the previous record low set in 2018.
The measured water level does not represent the actual depth of the Rhine but the height of the river's surface relative to a fixed local reference point. It serves as the basis for determining the permissible cargo load for ships and is a crucial benchmark for assessing shipping capacity along the entire route.
On Monday, cargo ships and tourist vessels were almost entirely absent from the river, with only the ferry connecting the two shores still operating. However, even the ferry service was suspended starting from 8:00 p.m. local time.
As the waterway is blocked and local railway lines are undergoing renovation, visitors can only reach Kaub by bus or car, Vogt explained.
"We could see the number of ships on the Rhine decreasing daily, and now there are almost none. It's so hot, and with the railway renovation, far fewer tourists are coming to Kaub," a staff member at a biergarten in Kaub told Xinhua.
The closure of the iconic Pfalzgrafenstein Castle as a result of low water levels has dealt another blow to Kaub's tourism industry.
The low water levels are also driving up logistics costs along the Rhine River, which carries about 80 percent of Germany's inland waterway freight. Reduced shipping efficiency and capacity are impacting the delivery of raw materials and the shipment of industrial products for numerous chemical, steel, refining and energy companies along the river.
In a bid to alleviate the transport pressure caused by the low water levels, several federal states, including Lower Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate, and North Rhine-Westphalia, have announced that they would temporarily relax Sunday and public holiday driving bans for trucks, encouraging businesses to shift some cargo originally transported by water to road transport.
What worries people like Vogt is that things could get worse before they improve.
The German Federal Institute of Hydrology has forecast that the water level at Kaub is very likely to drop below the 10-centimeter mark within the week, raising fears that the Rhine waterway could be effectively divided into two sections.
"If water levels fall any further, fewer and fewer vessels will be able to pass through this area. However, there are no official closures in place," said Fabian Spiess, deputy managing director of the Federal Association of German Inland Navigation (BDB), in a written interview with Xinhua.
If very few ships are operating in this area, the de facto result is that Rhine shipping is restricted to two separate sections: between the western North Sea ports and Koblenz in the north, and from Mainz southward in the south, Spiess elaborated.
"We are all hoping for rain now. But for the time being, there is no sign that the Rhine will rise again or that more activity will return to the river," Vogt said. ■
