Vistula River Experiences Unprecedented Low Water Levels

Due to prolonged extreme drought, water levels in Poland’s Vistula River have fallen to historic lows. The country’s largest hard coal-fired power plant, in Koźienice, has been forced to reduce its power output due to constraints on cooling water supply, with a total of 1.3 gigawatts of installed capacity affected—equivalent to 2% of the nation’s total power generation capacity. On-site hydrological monitoring indicates that the current river flow rate in the section near the power plant is only 135 cubic meters per second, with the plant’s cooling water intake alone consuming 80–100 cubic meters per second—accounting for more than half of the total flow. The plant’s water intake and discharge facilities have long posed a threat to aquatic life, causing the deaths of 23 species of fish and hundreds of millions of fish eggs each year; ecological damage worsens further during periods of drought.