{"id":9966,"date":"2026-08-11T15:55:35","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T13:55:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tigges.legal\/transportrends-august-2026-low-water-levels-and-obstacles-to-transportation-who-bears-the-risk\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T16:35:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T14:35:28","slug":"transportrends-august-2026-low-water-levels-and-obstacles-to-transportation-who-bears-the-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigges.legal\/en\/transportrends-august-2026-low-water-levels-and-obstacles-to-transportation-who-bears-the-risk\/","title":{"rendered":"TransporTrends August 2026: Low Water Levels and Obstacles to Transportation: Who Bears the Risk?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By <a href=\"https:\/\/tigges.legal\/en\/team-member\/dr-jan-hermeling\/\">Dr. Jan Hermeling<\/a><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">  In our <strong>TransporTrends<\/strong> series, we provide information in collaboration with the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.logit-club.de\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Kompetenznetz Logistik.NRW \/ LOG-IT Club e.V.<\/a> <\/strong>, we regularly provide updates on current <strong>topics, decisions, and trends<\/strong> in <strong>transportation and logistics law\u2014 <\/strong>today focusing on the highly relevant topic of the impact of low water levels on transportation.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Inland waterway shipping is currently struggling with historically low water levels. This raises an urgent question for shippers, freight forwarders, and inland waterway shipping companies: Who bears the economic risk if shipments can only be carried out to a limited extent\u2014or not at all\u2014as planned due to low water levels? A ruling by the Cologne Rhine Shipping Court (RheinSchiffOG) dated February 27, 2009 (3 U 204\/07) on the allocation of risk pursuant to Section 420 of the German Commercial Code (HGB) provides important guidelines on this matter.  <\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Facts \/ Main Points<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">An inland waterway vessel was loaded with approximately 800 metric tons of scrap metal; its draft was 2.02 meters. Water levels along the route had already dropped significantly over the course of several days prior to loading and continued to fall below the levels required for safe passage. Due to low water levels, the entire cargo could not be transported to its destination as planned; part of it had to be lightened en route and transferred to another vessel. The carrier sought, among other things, full freight and additional compensation for this; the shipper reduced the payment and demanded reimbursement for the lightening costs.  <\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Legal Classification: Low Water Level = Carrier&#8217;s Risk<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The court clarifies:<\/p>\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Low water levels that hinder transportation fall within the carrier&#8217;s sphere of risk if they are foreseeable.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In the event of a prolonged decline in water levels, the carrier must take into account during loading that the water level will continue to drop during the voyage, which may last several days; the draft must be calculated so that \u201csafe navigation is ensured for the entire duration of the voyage.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If the carriage of a partial load is terminated prematurely due to low water levels (e.g., unloading en route), the carrier is entitled only to a pro rata distance-based freight charge for the portion of the journey actually completed, subject to the interests of the shipper (Section 420(2) of the German Commercial Code (HGB)).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Costs incurred as a result of a low-water obstruction falling within the carrier\u2019s sphere of risk shall be borne by the carrier; if the shipper pays these costs, the shipper may seek reimbursement for them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The court thus confirms that foreseeable low water levels are not a \u201cneutral\u201d risk, but are fundamentally the carrier\u2019s risk\u2014even if the water level trends are visible to both parties.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Practical Note \/ Recommended Action<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Inland waterway shipping companies<\/strong> should systematically take water level trends and forecasts into account as early as the quotation and loading stages and choose unloading depths conservatively; if falling water levels are ignored, the risk of low water levels remains with the carrier.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shippers and freight forwarders<\/strong> should review their freight contracts to determine whether low water levels are expressly addressed. If there is no specific clause, the carrier bears the additional costs (lightening the load, extra trips) and receives only limited distance freight charges if shipments must be interrupted due to low water levels. <\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Given the current water levels, <strong>both parties<\/strong> should clearly define in their contract how to handle foreseeable periods of low water (loading limits, cost allocation, alternative routes) in order to avoid future disputes.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the author, <a href=\"https:\/\/tigges.legal\/en\/team-member\/dr-jan-hermeling\/\">Dr. Jan Hermeling<\/a>, or <a href=\"https:\/\/tigges.legal\/en\/transportation-logistics\/\">the Transport &amp; Logistics Expert Team<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Dr. Jan Hermeling In our TransporTrends series, we provide information in collaboration with the Kompetenznetz Logistik.NRW \/ LOG-IT Club e.V. , we regularly provide updates on current topics, decisions, and trends in transportation and logistics law\u2014 today focusing on the highly relevant topic of the impact of low water levels on transportation. Inland waterway [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":9975,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[313,207],"tags":[319,320],"class_list":["post-9966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transport-and-logistics-law","category-transportrends","tag-inland-waterway-shipping","tag-low-water"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigges.legal\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigges.legal\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigges.legal\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigges.legal\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigges.legal\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9966"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigges.legal\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9967,"href":"https:\/\/tigges.legal\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9966\/revisions\/9967"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigges.legal\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigges.legal\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigges.legal\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigges.legal\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}