The economic cost of the decimation is only one part of the problem, according to scientists. Gabriel Singer explained that the less water in the water system as a whole, the slower the river flows. Many species of riverine life, such as Danube salmon, barbel, and European grayling, can be killed by higher water temperatures.
Singer says that higher temperatures can be toxic for river systems. More than 100 metric tons of dead fish, including perch, catfish, pike, and asp, washed up on the Oder River in Germany in August. The cause of the die off is being investigated by experts.
The plight of the great rivers of Europe has grabbed the headlines, but it is the smaller rivers that suffer the most, according to scientists. Rinke says that a lot of them are completely dried up. They lose their entire community of flora and fauna. The next time it rains, it won't just come back.
Engineers and humans have been working along Europe's rivers for thousands of years. Europe's rivers have become more vulnerable to heat waves and low-water conditions due to the straightening of once-wild rivers, damming, industrial pollution, wastewater discharges, and agriculture's usurpation of shorelines and wetlands.
The upper Danube in Germany and Austria can be at risk of flooding as happened last July in the Rhine borderlands of Germany and Belgium. He says the underlying problem is the inability of rivers and river basins to hold water for long periods of time. He says that healthy natural ecosystems function as sponges that give and take water.
Christian Griebler is a limnologist at the University of Vienna. The surface overflow goes into fast-flowing rivers that don't communicate with the surrounding water sources.
The authorities' response to dredge deeper doesn't address the essential problem. It makes things worse.
The long-term effort of slowing global warming will be involved in resolving the crisis along Europe's rivers. Stronger wetlands protections and other factors need to be addressed by governments in the short term.
Some progress is being made on that front. A year ago, UNESCO established the world's first five-country biosphere reserve along the Mura, Drava, and Danube rivers.
Since 1998 the Danube Delta has been protected. It has not been spared from the extreme weather. The lives of Romania's famed wild horses were at risk when the freshwater springs in the Letea Forest went dry. The mud-caked springs were bulldozed to allow water to flow again.
In times of lower precipitation, the glaciers act as a reserve for the larger rivers. Climate change modelers say they won't be around in 30 years. This is very worrying.
Robert Lichtner says that adaptation measures must be part of the basin's future. He says that the extreme weather is not going away. Adapt and learn to live with it.
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