Why Europe’s inland shipping network is drying up
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 7 September 2022
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As Europe’s historically dry summer continues, Matthew Kenyon takes a trip on the barge Mezzoforte, and talks to skipper Dirk Pols about the challenges of navigating as river depths fall.
We hear from Cornelis van Dorsser of the Dutch Inland Shipping Association about how the industry is preparing for the continued impacts of climate change.
Economist Saskia Meuchelböck tells us about the economic effects of the last major dry period, just four years ago, when a month of low water on the Rhine knocked 0.4% off Germany’s GDP, and hydrologist Saskia Werners explains how barge captains, industry, importers and the public have to expect more of the same.
Presenter / producer: Matthew Kenyon Image: The Mezzoforte; Credit; Matthew Kenyon / BBC
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What's up, y'all? |
| 0:01.0 | I'm Renee Montgomery, and my podcast Untold Legends |
| 0:03.9 | Aura is available now. |
| 0:06.5 | I'm looking back on the life of one of the most extraordinary black female sports stars |
| 0:11.4 | of the 20th century, whose name has been all but forgotten. |
| 0:16.1 | Ora Washington. |
| 0:17.9 | Stay listening at the end of this podcast to find out more. |
| 0:31.8 | Hello, this is Business Daily on the BBC World Service. I'm Matthew Kenyon on board the Metsoforte, a tanker barge, which carries cargo up and down the inland waterways of the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. |
| 0:39.8 | Europe's drought has severely disrupted this vital form of transport this year |
| 0:45.0 | and the problems are getting more extreme and more frequent. |
| 0:49.3 | In 2018 we said this is the one in so many years event. |
| 0:54.9 | And now we're four years later and it's happening again. |
| 0:59.6 | You may only have 10% of your cargo available at extreme low water conditions |
| 1:05.6 | under which you still able to sail. |
| 1:08.3 | So what can the shipping industry do about it? |
| 1:11.2 | And how can we protect this crucial network from the impact of climate change? |
| 1:16.3 | That's Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 1:21.2 | I'm on the bow of the barge, Metso Forte, making her way down the Amsterdam Rhine Canal towards Utrecht and eventually she's |
| 1:29.1 | going to get to Flusinger in the south of the Netherlands and pick up a new cargo. She's a big barge, |
| 1:33.6 | 110 metres long, 11.5 metres wide and she can carry a huge amount of cargo, 2.8 million litres of |
| 1:41.4 | liquid. The Menceau Forte may be be 30 years old, but she looks fantastic. |
| 1:46.1 | The paint gleams and so does all the metal work. And if you stand on the bridge and look |
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