ZDF Addresses Low Water Levels on the Rhine – Featuring an Interview with Mark Braun

The current period of low water levels continues to be in focus of politics, economy and media. On the WISO program, ZDF captures the perspectives of various stakeholders. In a preliminary interview, Dr.-Ing. Mark Braun shares extensive findings from the BMFTR research project R2K-Klim+ as well as from his dissertation, and also provides an interview contribution for the program.

Climate change will continue to vary precipitation and runoff patterns in the Rhine River basin in the future and will also affect inland waterway shipping and economy. FiW had already reached this conclusion following the low-water event of 2018 and then subsequently submitted a project proposal under the BMFTR funding guideline “RegIKlim – Regional Information” on climate action. Since 2020, an interdisciplinary consortium led by the FiW has been studying the effects of climate change on the city of Duisburg, including the impact of low water levels.

In collaboration with Prognos AG and the Federal Institute of Hydrology, the FiW took a closer look at the hydrological and economic situation along the Rhine and used Prognos AG’s economic models to determine potential losses in value added in the event of future incidents. In his dissertation, Mark Braun examined various scenarios in detail. In addition to the most recent SSP climate scenarios, other developments, such as the melting of Alpine glaciers and the filling of RWE’s open-pit mines, as well as adaptation measures, such as optimizing unloading operations on the Middle Rhine or adapting the shipping fleet to include vessels optimized for low-water conditions, were also taken into account. The effects are quantified in terms of potential losses in economic value added.

The findings from his dissertation, many years of project work in R2K-Klim+, and various networking initiatives, such as the “Zukunft Rhein” dialogue process organized by KlimaDiskurs.NRW, have now been incorporated into the preliminary discussions with ZDF regarding the production of the WISO program.

To provide visual material for the program, a filming session was held at the Duisburg-Ruhrort Rhine gauge in collaboration with Matthias Simons, director of the Duisburg City Environmental Office. In the contribution, the representatives from FiW and the city ultimately presented the scientific and municipal perspectives on options for adapting to low water levels on the Rhine.

The WISO segment is available in the ZDF media library: https://www.zdf.de/magazine/wiso-104 

Mark Braun's dissertation is publicly available at the following link: https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/record/1028100 

The website for the R2K-Klim+ project can be accessed at the following link: https://r2k-klim.net/