The near record drought in Europe has lowered water levels in rivers throughout the region. One result of this has been to restrict the safe navigation of the many freight carrying barges that use the rivers as routes to cross the continent.
Leisure boat users are sometimes similarly affected where water levels restrict there passage and affect the functioning of locks where they connect with the canal systems and there have been reports of frayed tempers when lock keepers report the situation to those seeking to use the locks.
In Koblenz Germany, where the Mosel meets the Rhine the situation could be a little more explosive now that the diminished water levels have disclosed something far more sinister.
A world war two bomb packed with over a ton of explosives has been found lying in 16 inches of water.
Now as experts plan to diffuse the device stretches of water ways are being closed off and some 45,000 people, roughly half of the population of Koblenz are to be evacuated.
Local officials are reported to have said that this was one of the largest unexploded bombs ever found, and is believed to have been dropped by the Royal Air Force during raids in the area some 70 years ago