The climate change crisis has not left any part of the world untouched, and it now threatens the water arteries in Europe, after the old continent recorded record temperatures that caused the evaporation of its large rivers' waters, and it also threatens to evaporate about $80 billion from the European Union's economy.

The Rhine River, which was considered one of the main pillars of the economy in Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland for several centuries, has been strongly affected by drought, which currently hinders the movement of goods transportation through it, according to a report by Bloomberg.

Also, the high temperatures in the rivers have made the waters of the Rhone and Garonne rivers in France warm to the extent that they no longer allow for effective cooling of France’s nuclear reactors, while the Po River in Italy has witnessed a significant decrease in water levels, becoming insufficient to irrigate rice fields.

As for the Danube River, which stretches over 1800 miles between Central Europe and the Black Sea, it is drying up as well, hindering the trade of grains and others.

The drought affecting rivers in Europe causes significant disruptions in the movement of trade along rivers, which is an important element of transportation between European countries, and this happens after only four years from a similar halt of the historic transport movement along the famous Rhine River due to the decline in its water levels in 2018, increasing pressures on the European Union to support transportation sectors, at a time when the Union faces many challenges due to the Ukraine crisis, gas shortages, and others.