Climate change impacts on transport on the Rhine and Danube: A multimodal approach

•Climate change impact on water levels is not strong enough to influence modal share.•General economic conditions have a much greater influence on volumes and modal split.•Exceptionally dry conditions could justify maintaining small vessels.

This paper measures the potential effects of low water levels on the Rhine and Danube navigation in the context of weather variability and a number of climate change scenarios. A long-term multimodal network transport analysis over the period 2005–2050 is presented; it analyzes the impact of changes on the water depth conditions on transport costs and the modal splits between three competing modes. The results indicate that the impact of climate change until 2050 should be limited.