Dry, hot summers are putting Dutch dikes at risk and threatening German river trade

WADDINXVEEN, Netherlands -- Jeroen Wouda and Dirk Boom walk slowly along a Dutch dike, prodding at the bone dry surface with metal rods and scanning the parched grass for patches of green that could give away the location of a leak.In a scene that brings to mind the fictional Dutch boy who heroically plugs a hole in a dike with his finger, the two men are hunting for cracks in the low-lying Netherlands’ famed water defenses caused a drought that is gripping Europe and has fueled raging wildfires in France and Spain and sent the Danube and Rhine rivers to record low levels.Unlike the low-tech solution in American author Mary Mapes Dodge's 19th-century story, modern dike patrols are able to plot possible problems caused by drought in an app and send it to authorities who can then quickly carry our repairs. In the Netherlands and neighboring Germany cargo ships that ply the Rhine and its offshoots have been forced to carry significantly less freight or risk running aground in shallow navigation channels. Farmers facing restrictions on irrigating their crops are warning of smaller fruit harvests and rising prices this season.And for some houseboat owners, the drought has left their wat...