Germany suspends Sunday truck ban, debates river deepening as low water levels cripple shipping

An increasing number of German states have temporarily lifted the country’s Sunday ban on truck traffic as low water levels on major rivers disrupt inland shipping, a move criticised by environmentalists. Berlin and Brandenburg followed Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland in suspending the ban, newspaper Die Zeit reported. 

Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern are set to follow suit this coming weekend, Die Zeit reported. Germany relies heavily on its rivers, particularly the Rhine, to transport goods such as coal, chemicals and grain, and low water levels have repeatedly disrupted supply chains in recent years. Climate change is making droughts and low-water events more frequent and severe on European rivers.

Germany normally bans lorries over 7.5 tonnes from using public roads on Sundays and public holidays, to reduce noise and create a break from heavy traffic. The federal transport ministry asked all states to allow exemptions to the truck ban so that goods normally moved by barge can shift to road transport and keep supply chains running. 

The Rhine's water level in North Rhine-Westphalia fell further to a record low in Cologne, according to data from the regional waterways and shipping authority. Forecasts suggest levels at several gauges will drop significantly further by Friday, potentially undercutting the previous record lows set in October 2018 by more than 20 centimetres.

Germany's new transport minister, Steffen Bilger from the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), said that a deepening of the rivers' waterways should be considered to keep up trust in shipping as a reliable and climate-friendly form of freight transport, public broadcaster ARD reported. "We have to build out our waterways to guarantee greater reliability in the future," Bilger said.

His government cabinet colleague, environment minister Carsten Schneider from the Social Democrats (SPD), rejected the idea that deepening the rivers' navigable channel is an appropriate response to the situation. Instead, Schneider argued for a "renaturation" of rivers that turns them from heavily modified canals back into "meandering river branches with flood plains that retain water at a large scale." 

Environmentalist groups also said treating the symptoms of low water levels could not replace addressing the problem itself: “Instead of tackling the root causes of the water shortage, the plan is to adjust navigation channels and suspend truck bans on lorries on Sundays and public holidays,” the Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union NABU said.

“Responsible climate adaptation policy needs to be more substantial,” the NGO said, renewing earlier calls for a federal “heat summit”. “Nature provides the solution: restoring the landscape’s water balance, re-wetting moors and river floodplains, and restoring the soil’s lost water storage capacity,” NABU said.