War and drought: Another critical oil waterway is about to close

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With apologies to Oscar Wilde, to lose one critical waterway may be regarded as misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness.

Of course, we’re long past carelessness and are now barrelling toward disaster, with three already lost (the Strait of Hormuz, the Black Sea ports and the Red Sea’s Bab el-Mandeb) and a fourth poised to join their ranks: the mighty Rhine.

The river, which stretches across north-west Europe, doesn’t have the geopolitical pedigree of some of the other waterways in the headlines lately. But it’s similarly essential, acting as a conveyor belt that connects chemical plants, oil refineries, steel foundries, coal-fired power stations and other manufacturing sites across Switzerland, Germany and France with the Dutch ports.

BASF, the German chemical behemoth, describes its importance in hyperbolic terms: “Without the Rhine, industrial production in Western Europe would collapse.”

The river is one of the world’s most frequented waterways. On any given day, about 6900 vessels transport cargo up and down its nearly 1290-kilometre course. The problem it faces isn’t war or geopolitical upheaval, but lack of rain: An extreme drought, probably exacerbated by climate change, has reduced its water level to dramatic lows, all but halting barge traffic.

The US-Iran war has reminded the world that waterways are vulnerable to war. The Rhine crisis should remind us that a hotter world will do the same to river navigation.

The Rhine has perennially suffered from low water levels, including episodes in........

© The Sydney Morning Herald