Lost income, energy fears and a woolly mammoth: what Europe’s dried-up rivers have yielded

Heat and drought have affected shipping, power plants and tourism across eastern Europe – as well as unearthing some surprises

Baking temperatures and drought across large swathes of central and eastern Europe have driven water levels on the Danube and Rhine rivers to record lows in some areas, hitting shipping, energy production and tourism hard.

Extreme conditions aggravated by the climate emergency left Europe’s waterways from the Netherlands to the Black Sea parched, triggering compounding crises.