Rhine Hits Lowest Level Since 1880 as Switzerland Sends Emergency Water to Italy's Lake Maggiore

Since Italy's grape harvest kicked off 10 days early to outrun record heat, the drought squeezing Europe has moved past agriculture and into the guts of the continent's energy grid and shipping lanes.

Switzerland announced this week it's opening the taps on Lake Lugano to prop up Italy's Lake Maggiore, according to Euronews. The discharge from the Ceresio toward Ponte Tresa will jump from 3 to 8 cubic meters per second, with Italian and Swiss officials agreeing to the emergency measure through the Italian-Swiss Bilateral Consultation Body, convened urgently by Italy's Ministry of the Environment. The goal: keep rice paddies in Piedmont and Lombardy irrigated while not completely draining a lake that also supplies drinking water. Canton Ticino says the arrangement is temporary and will be reassessed in coming days.

Italy isn't alone. The Po River Basin Authority had already flagged Lake Maggiore as near its minimum operating level back in July, according to Euronews. Now scarcity is hitting drinking water supplies in parts of the country, not just farm irrigation.

Rhine hits a level not seen since 1880

Germany's Rhine River, one of Europe's busiest cargo corridors, fell to 24 centimeters at the Kaub gauge on Monday and Tuesday, according to CNBC, citing data compiled by ETH Zurich. That's the lowest reading since records began in 1880. The critical threshold for normal navigation at Kaub is 78 centimeters. Below that, barges have to run lighter loads, and freight costs and low-water surcharges climb.

A report from theinteldrop put a sharper point on the mechanics. With Kaub readings below 30 centimeters, cargo vessels have had to cut loads to as little as 20% of normal capacity. Belgian shipping operators told similar stories, leaving 10-20% of cargo onshore, according to the same report, with more than half of goods leaving the Port of Antwerp-Bruges normally moving by inland waterway.

Hungary and Romania's nuclear plants are the canary in the coal mine

The Danube has fallen even harder. Water levels in Budapest sank to 4 inches on Monday, smashing the previous record low of 13 inches set in 2018, according to the Associated Press as reported by CNN. Hungary is bracing for triple-digit heat this week on top of it.

The consequence: Hungary's Paks nuclear plant, which normally generates close to half the country's electricity, is running at roughly 10% capacity because all but one reactor has been forced offline for lack of cooling water, according to CNN. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has thanked households and industry for voluntarily cutting power use during peak evening hours.

Romania took even more drastic action. Bucharest shut down its sole working nuclear reactor cooled by the Danube and sent naval forces to detonate underwater charges near Izvoarele village, according to CNBC, to reroute more water toward the cooling systems at the Cernavoda plant. Serbia has had to cut hydropower generation as well.