Welcome to Europe’s increasingly desperate efforts to keep one of the continent’s most important waterways working. The Danube River reached dramatically low water levels this month, sending EU governments scrambling. Romanian authorities used explosives to steer more water toward the Cernavodă nuclear plant.
The Hungarian government submerged vessels in a bid to keep water flowing past its own Paks nuclear plant. Some 180 tourists in Bulgaria had to be evacuated from a stranded ship near the port city of Vidin. The Danube, Europe’s second-longest waterway, is a vital artery for freight, drinking water, agriculture and industry.
It helps cool major nuclear plants and feeds hydropower projects. The river basin stretches across 19 countries and supports tens of millions of people. But recurring drought, driven by climate change, threatens to change all that.
With drought becoming a recurring threat, Europe still doesn’t have a unified, binding policy to confront water shortages in the Danube and beyond. Responsibility remains split between national governments and river basin authorities, regulated by a patchwork of EU laws that green groups say are poorly enforced. Many of the bloc’s new resilience measures remain voluntary.
Against that backdrop, national authorities are resorting to unilateral measures that, some argue, could wreak havoc on their neighbors and nearby ecosystems. Dimiter Koumanov, head of environmental protection at Bulgarian river NGO Balkanka, argues that countries are taking emergency action without considering the broader consequences. He is particularly concerned about the potential impact of such measures on Bulgaria’s drinking water.
Danube countries are “doing everything they wish, and we in Bulgaria are paying the price,” he said. When the river runs too low, governments aren’t just dealing with a water crisis — they also risk losing a major electricity source. This month Hungary began construction on a riverbed sill — a dam-like structure — to raise water levels around Paks.
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