Highways agency Rijkswaterstaat has imposed a one-way system on the IJssel river in the east of the country because of falling river levels.
From Friday morning barges and boats travelling from Arnhem to Zutphen will have to take a detour of up to 300km.
Rijkswaterstaat said the water channel in the river was too shallow to allow ships to pass each other.
The summer drought has brought the flow in the major Dutch rivers down to unprecedented levels, with the Rhine down to 600 cubic metres a second at Lobith, the point where it enters the Netherlands from Germany.
Koninklijke Binnnenvaart Nederland, which represents inland waterway users, said it was a further blow for a sector that had already been forced to adopt limits on its activities.
Spokesman Andries de Weerd told NOS: “We’ve been taking half or even one-third loads, and now we’re having take the long route round, so unfortunately the costs are going to go up a little.”
