02.08.2025 - water level of 112 cm
02.09.2025 - water level of 5 cm
On the morning of 10 September 2024, the water level of the Vistula (Wisła), Poland's longest river, reached a record low of 20 cm along the river's embankments in Warsaw. After an abnormally dry winter with little snowfall, followed by an equally dry spring with little rainfall, the record was again beaten on 2 September 2025 when the monitoring station at the same location recorded a water level of only 5 cm before briefly plunging to an all-time low of only 4 cm.
As water gives way to never before seen rock, the effects of climate change become visible in a way rarely seen in history. Is the Vistula giving us a glimpse into the future?
In recent years drought in Poland has been intensifying, and the drying of the Vistula river during the summer, once a rarity, has become an annual occurrence. The issue in Warsaw is exasperated by a lucrative sand mining operation, which artificially lowers the riverbed. Scientists warn that drought in Poland will only become worse in the future, threatening water supplies and food production, if we continue to allow extractive economic systems to devastate the planet's delicate ecology.
As water gives way to never before seen rock, the effects of climate change become visible in a way rarely seen in history. Is the Vistula giving us a glimpse into the future?
In recent years drought in Poland has been intensifying, and the drying of the Vistula river during the summer, once a rarity, has become an annual occurrence. The issue in Warsaw is exasperated by a lucrative sand mining operation, which artificially lowers the riverbed. Scientists warn that drought in Poland will only become worse in the future, threatening water supplies and food production, if we continue to allow extractive economic systems to devastate the planet's delicate ecology.