Overview
- The federal government launched NIWIS on Wednesday, July 15, 2026, and the system now publishes daily, standardized readings for rivers, discharges, groundwater, soil moisture and precipitation.
- NIWIS initially integrates roughly 380 surface‑water and 230 groundwater stations plus data from the federal waterways and weather services and uses a four‑tier scale that compares current values to the 1991–2020 reference period.
- Officials say Germany has lost about 60 billion cubic metres of water over the past two decades, a structural drying trend that raises the risk of recurring low‑water episodes.
- Low levels are already causing real impacts: limits on Rhine shipping capacity and cutbacks in some industrial output have been reported and around 80 of 294 counties have introduced water‑use restrictions.
- Hydrologists warn that deep groundwater recharge mainly occurs in cooler months, so summer rain will do little to reverse deficits quickly and studies cited by the government warn of major economic costs if scarcity is not tackled.