Danube has always been a symbol of permanence, a river that connects ten countries, supplies half of the continent with water, energy and traffic. However, the summer of 2026 shows that even such a mighty river has a limit of endurance.
Water level near Bezdan, it dropped to -120 cm, which brought it close to the historical minimum from long ago in 1909, writes Dr. Igor Leščešen from the Institute of Hydrology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences from Bratislava on the portal "Climate 101".
A similar picture is repeated along the entire course of the river. In Bratislava, on July 27, the lowest water level was recorded since 1876, when measurements began. A new historical minimum of only 32 cm was measured near Budapest on July 28, while in Croatia the water level is even 17 centimeters lower than the previous minimum from 2022.
In other words, what looked like an exception in 2022 looks more like a new pattern today.
Photo: Tanjug/Aleksandra OrlićThe record low water level of the Danube is causing numerous problems
Is it the weather or something deeper?
In order to understand the causes, we need to separate two terms that are often confused.
Meteorological drought simply means a lack of precipitation relative to the average.
Hydrological drought is something else, it is a drop in the flow and water level of the river itself, and it does not occur immediately when the rains disappear, but with a delay, sometimes even weeks later.
In the case of the Danube, this delay is particularly pronounced, due to the large basin that includes Germany, Austria, Slovakia and Hungary before entering Serbia.
This means that the water level near Belgrade or Novi Sad depends much less on how much rain fell in Vojvodina, and much more on the rain that fell hundreds of kilometers upstream, in the alpine basins. And that's only part of the story.
Namely, if the winter in the Alps was poor in snow, the Danube will be low in July, regardless of the weather conditions in Serbia that summer. Low water levels on the Danube traditionally occur at the end of summer, in August or September.
This year, however, the crisis started already at the end of April and the beginning of May, months earlier than usual.
What do precipitation and snow cover data show?
The reason for such an early and deep drop in the Danube's water level lies in the combination of a large lack of precipitation throughout the year in central Europe and, perhaps more importantly, a small amount of snow at the headwaters of the Danube in southern Germany.
Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case this year.
New research on the European snow cover, based on the reconstruction of data for the last six centuries, shows a decrease in the amount of snow of 20% in the period December-January and even 30% in the period April-May compared to the historical average.
On average, the continent loses about 1,2% of its snow cover per decade, with a much faster decline at higher altitudes, while the Alps, which are considered the most important "water tower" of Europe, have lost almost 6% of their snow cover per decade in the last half century.
It is not an abstract climate statistic, but a direct fuel that the Danube lacks every summer, because the snow from the Alps in normal years melts gradually and feeds the river precisely during the driest months.
Photo: TanjugA hundred-year record broken
Is climate change to blame?
The experts' answer is clear, albeit cautious: climate change is not the only, but key, cause of the long-term trend.
Regional climate models predict an increase in the average annual temperature of 1,5 to 2,5 °C by the middle of the century, with more pronounced warming in the summer, while projections for summer precipitation in Vojvodina and northern Serbia indicate a drop of 10 to 20 percent.
The combination of less precipitation and increasingly warm air creates a mechanism experts call "temperature-driven drought," a situation in which evaporation alone increases the water deficit, even when the lack of rain is not extreme.
Research shows that the downstream sections of the Danube record a greater decrease in minimum flows than the upstream sections, which means that the lower course of the river, the one through Serbia, is particularly exposed.
It is important to emphasize that this is not a trend that applies only to Serbia, but also to Europe as a whole, and that it does not have to look like this every year, but that the problem, in some form, will exist every year, either in river courses or in groundwater.
What are the consequences of such a low water level?
It's easy to think that low water levels are only a problem for fishermen, boaters and hydrologists.
In reality, the consequences run much deeper into everyday life. The consequences for electricity production are already widely discussed in our media, and EPS admits that 2026 could be one of the worst years in the history of the power plant.
The supply of crude oil and other goods by river is also difficult, so less diesel and gasoline reaches the pumps, transport costs rise, and river tourism suffers because a large number of companies that organize cruises on the Danube cancel departures.
"Agriculture feels perhaps the longest and most severe consequences"
Dr. Igor Leščešen, Institute of Hydrology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (Bratislava)
Agriculture feels perhaps the longest and most severe consequences.
In southeastern Romania, one of the EU's biggest grain exporters, authorities have restricted access to river water for irrigation. Even Munich, at the source of the Danube, introduced bans on the use of water, a sign that the crisis is felt from the source of the river to its confluence with the Black Sea.
And finally, there is the issue of the river itself as a living system. A smaller amount of water heats up faster and contains less oxygen, which endangers fish and other wildlife, while reduced flow weakens the river's ability to dilute what is discharged into it.
Photo: AP Photo/Darko VojinovicDue to the record low water level of the Danube, navigation was partially stopped
Can we mitigate these consequences?
Since the repetition of such conditions is realistic, the question that naturally arises is what is in our power to adapt.
Part of the problem, namely, is not exclusively climatic. The expert public also warns against the irrational use of water resources, from the unnecessary consumption of drinking water in households to the extraction of sand and gravel from the river bed, which further deepens the bed and accelerates the drainage of groundwater precisely in periods when it is least desirable.
These are factors that, unlike the climate itself, can be influenced relatively quickly, through stricter regulation of river material exploitation and more rational consumption of water at the local level.
"On a broader, national and European level, experts have been pointing for a long time to the need for the so-called adaptive management of water resources, an approach that relies on continuous monitoring of the situation, instead of reacting only when a crisis has already occurred"
Dr. Igor Leščešen, Institute of Hydrology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (Bratislava)
On a broader, national and European level, experts have long pointed to the need for the so-called adaptive management of water resources, an approach that relies on continuous monitoring of the situation, instead of reacting only when a crisis has already occurred.
Since the Danube is a shared river, whose flow depends on the decisions and weather conditions of a number of different countries, the challenge is not only technical but also institutional, and coordination is needed between the countries whose territories the river passes through, so that, for example, the management of water reservoirs and discharges is coordinated in periods of crisis, and not left to each country individually.
None of these measures will restore snow to the Alps or increase annual precipitation, but they can mitigate how deep and how quickly meteorological drought turns into hydrological drought, which is realistically the only part of the equation we can influence right now.
All this shows that low water is not a problem that remains on the river bank. It spills over into the electricity in the socket, the price of fuel, the crops in the field and the quality of the air and water that people use every day.
The Danube sends us a clear message: through the silent, persistent drop in the water level year after year, that this is not a story about one bad summer, but about a river that shows us the limits of our own endurance, and asks us how ready we are to respect that limit.
Source: Air Conditioning 101
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