Ahead of Transport Minister Steffen Bilger’s meeting with industry representatives in Bonn on Thursday, Ex-Environment Minister Steffi Lemke (The Greens) has called for fundamental changes in how Germany manages its rivers. Addressing the severe, though locally varying, low water levels, Lemke told the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland that Germany is being systematically drained, even during drought conditions.
She attributed this to the thousands of kilometers of drainage ditches and pipes, the abandonment of various wetlands, and centuries-old regulatory measures installed on rivers to make them more usable.
To correct this, Lemke insists that policy must prioritize keeping water within the landscape and increasing natural storage capacity. “Floodplains and wetlands must be restored, and drainage ditches and pipes must be decommissioned,” she stated. Furthermore, she called for regulation of industrial water extraction and a reversal of urban sealing (paving). She also noted that Rhine navigation is a specialized case, warning that failure to address these core issues represents a major political setback.
The new Minister of Transport is scheduled to meet with stakeholders from industry, ports, and inland shipping to discuss the current crisis of low water levels in the Rhine and other waterways, and to assess the effectiveness of existing measures. A special video conference among transport ministers is also planned for Thursday.
Lemke also highlighted that due to global warming, both droughts and low water periods are becoming more frequent and intense in certain regions. Climate change is shifting precipitation patterns, leading to rain that falls less often but in larger volumes. This situation will only worsen as long as greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas are added to the atmosphere.
