The EU’s longest river is rapidly drying up

Tengrinews.kz — The water level in the Danube has fallen so low that the foundation of Budapest’s Margaret Bridge has been fully exposed, citing Euronews.
In the southern section of the Danube, the water level has reached a historic low. Near Mohács, the hull of a ship that sank during World War II emerged from the river. Due to numerous shallow shoals, navigation had to be restricted.
The most difficult situation is in the Baja area. There, separate branches of the Sugovica tributary have almost completely dried up, causing devastating damage to the local ecosystem. On the most critical day, the water depth was only 14 centimeters — half of the previous record low.
Csaba Abonyi, head of flood protection and river management at the local water authority, said the concern is not so much the current situation as the steady trend.

“If we look at how many times over the past 125 years the water level has fallen below one meter, which is already considered very low, it turns out that this has happened 21 times. And 14 of those cases occurred in the past 25 years. This confirms what scientists have long been warning about: the Danube will experience periods of low water that are becoming more frequent, lasting longer and reaching increasingly lower levels,” the expert warned.

He explained that in the past, even when precipitation was lacking, water was replenished by meltwater runoff from the Alps. But because of global warming, Alpine glaciers have sharply retreated, leaving almost no reserves.
The main problem is that, unlike with lakes, it is not possible to simply open a channel for rivers. The only option is to wait until a fuller flow arrives from the upper reaches and the impact of climate change weakens.