Increasing droughts are forcing shipping companies to abandon some of the world’s capital ships river freight routeswarns Ann Christina Sloek-Andersen, senior director at Maersk.
More than 300 million tons of goods are typically transported annually by river barges on the Rhine, which flows nearly 800 miles from Switzerland to the Netherlands, where it empties into the North Sea.
But in the summer months of 2022, record low water levels meant some vessels could only carry 25% of their usual cargo to avoid risking running aground on the riverbed. This caused significant delays in shipping.
“We transport our customers’ cargo on barges wherever possible,” Sloek-Andersen said in an interview with BBC News on February 8, “because it means a lot less CO2 emissions compared to trucks.”
When Rhine levels fell last summer, Maersk said its existing partnerships with rail providers meant they were able “to step in with extra capacity”.
The train, Sloek-Andersen said, is the preferred alternative to the river because it has similarly low carbon emissions2 Footprint, at about 20-30 g CO2 per tonne-kilometer per year (gCO2e/tkm), in contrast to trucks, which emit just under 140 gCO2e/tkm.
However, she added that other companies would have to switch to road freight transport.
And it wasn’t just Europe that was left dry last year. The Mississippi River is used to transport more than 500 million tons of cargo a year, but in 2022 record low water levels caused an estimated $20 billion in economic damage. In China, parts of the Yangtze River, whose surrounding provinces generate 45% of the country’s economic output, have been closed to ships because water levels were more than 50% below average.
Studies show that drought conditions are only expected to worsen in the coming years.
