River levels for shipping
Low water on the Rhine and the Mississippi means lighter barge loads. The latest gauge readings, the agencies' own forecasts and the levels they publish for each gauge, with no thresholds of TradeTurbulence's own.
Fetched , three times a day.
What a gauge reading is
A gauge reading is the height of the water above a fixed zero mark at the gauge. It is not the depth of the shipping channel: WSV’s help page says a gauge level tells you nothing about the local depth of water, and a reading below zero does not mean a dry river. What matters for shipping is the reading against the levels each agency publishes for its own gauge, and that is how these pages show it.
Why these two gauges
Kaub is the shallowest point on the Rhine’s main shipping route between the North Sea ports and southern Germany and Switzerland. A container barge operator, Contargo, prices its low-water surcharges for terminals south of Koblenz off the Kaub reading. Memphis is the reference gauge for the lower Mississippi, which carries US grain down to the Gulf ports. On both rivers, low water means lighter barge loads.
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