Inland shipping is a key modality for freight transport between the seaport of Rotterdam and the industrial areas in Germany and Switzerland. The recent droughts of 2018, 2019 and 2022 have clearly demonstrated how discharge related supply chain disruptions cause substantial economic damages in the hinterland. The IPCC predicts that climate change will increase the variability in water cycles globally, making future extremes more frequent and more severe. In-depth insight into the response of inland shipping to discharge extremes is crucial to better anticipate and potentially mitigate this climate risk. Existing literature takes (a small number of) representative vessels and estimates corridor scale climate risks through extrapolation. Recent droughts have shown that this approach may give unrealistic results. Newspaper articles and reports from the sector suggest that the fleet composition and vessel deployment change during high and low discharge extremes, and cascading effects are likely to occur. So far, however, no objective data on this phenomenon has been reported in literature. This paper analyses ten years of IVS and discharge data, for the period between 2010 and 2020, revealing in detail for the first time how discharge levels and vessel deployment are related. This improved insight into shipping response is crucial for any corridor to accurately estimate the climate risk of discharge extremes. While this paper focuses on the Rhine corridor, the proposed method is applicable to other corridors as well.

内河航运是鹿特丹海港与德国和瑞士工业区之间货运的主要方式。最近 2018 年、2019 年和 2022 年的干旱清楚地表明了与排放相关的供应链中断如何对内陆地区造成重大经济损失。 IPCC预测，气候变化将增加全球水循环的变异性，使未来的极端事件更加频繁和严重。深入了解内陆航运对极端排放的反应对于更好地预测和减轻这种气候风险至关重要。现有文献采用（少量）代表性船只，并通过外推法估计走廊规模的气候风险。最近的干旱表明，这种方法可能会产生不切实际的结果。该行业的报纸文章和报告表明，在高排放和低排放极端情况下，船队组成和船舶部署会发生变化，并且可能会发生连锁效应。然而，迄今为止，文献中尚未报道有关这一现象的客观数据。本文分析了 2010 年至 2020 年十年间的 IVS 和排放数据，首次详细揭示了排放水平与船舶部署之间的关系。这种对航运响应的深入了解对于任何走廊准确估计极端排放的气候风险至关重要。虽然本文重点关注莱茵河走廊，但所提出的方法也适用于其他走廊。