The Stream, October 9, 2024: In Bosnia, ‘Worst Flooding in Years’ Follows Summer Drought

The River Miljacka flows through Sarajevo in March 2024. Photo © Christian Thorsberg/Circle of Blue

YOUR GLOBAL RUNDOWN

A powerful, overnight rainstorm in central Bosnia and Herzegovina has caused the country’s ‘worst flooding in years.’
River flows around the world fell to all-time lows last year, according to a new United Nations report.
The amount of moss and plant life on Antarctica has increased tenfold over the past 40 years, as sea ice and snow continue to melt in a warming world.
Rural communities in Zimbabwe are bracing for acute food shortages after a year of failed harvests.

The number of Atlantic salmon returning to English waters has reached a record low, indicative of the country’s polluted freshwater ecosystems.

“Forty years ago an estimated 1.4 million salmon returned to UK rivers each year. We are now at barely a third of that – a new low and evidence of the wider, growing biodiversity crisis.” — Alan Lovell, Environment Agency Chair.

As nearly 90 percent of English rivers are considered “at risk” or “probably at risk” due to excessive pollution — from agricultural and chemical runoff, sedimentation, and the dumping of raw sewage — fewer and fewer Atlantic salmon are surviving their migration from the ocean to freshwater spawning grounds, Reuters reports.

The declared rod catch for the UK in 2023 was 4,911 salmon, 23 percent lower than that figure in 2022 and the lowest on record. Declines in salmon populations were also seen in Iceland, Ireland, Sweden, and Canada.

— Christian Thorsberg, Interim Stream Editor

Recent WaterNews from Circle of Blue

Giant Storms, Growing Stronger, Inundate an Unprepared Planet — Climate change produces massive rains that are overwhelming the capacity to adapt.
Michigan’s New Rules To Protect Water From Manure Attacked By Lawmakers — State is a center of manure biodigester development.

The Lead

Power was lost and cell service was down as floodwaters and landslides swept overnight through Donja Jablanica, a village of several hundred people on the banks of the Neretva River and 35 miles southwest of Sarajevo.

Heavy rains fell overnight last Friday, collapsing a quarry on a hillside above the village and sending rubble and debris spilling onto cars and buildings below. At least 10 houses, a barn, and dozens of sheep and cows were lost, Reuters reports. As of Tuesday morning, according to CNN, at least 21 people have died and dozens more are missing. It is the country’s most devastating flooding in years.

Train lines and roads — including one of the busiest passages that links Sarajevo to the Adriatic coast — have been closed or swept away, which continues to complicate rescue efforts.

This summer, the Balkans endured periods of extended drought. The long-lasting dry spell resulted in the land around Donja Jablanica being unable to absorb waters as efficiently as they otherwise would have. The lack of infiltration exacerbated the effects of the deluge. To the west and south of Bosnia, villages in both Croatia and Montenegro also faced strong winds and heavy precipitation.

This Week’s Top Water Stories, Told In Numbers

2,952

Acres on the Antarctic Peninsula, as of 2021, that are covered in vegetation, Yale Environment 360 reports. The phenomenon of Antarctic greening — the process by which the continent’s snow and ice is replaced with moss and plant life as the world warms — has increased tenfold over the past 40 years, according to a new study published in Nature Geoscience. The researchers speculate that a loss of sea ice and warmer ocean waters around Antarctica are contributing to the landscape’s changes.

Percent of people living in rural Zimbabwe who are expected to live with severe hunger between January and March 2025, DW reports, after harvests this year were decimated by a combination of El Niño weather patterns and drought. Many people are now turning to baobab, an ancient fruit that has been overlooked until recently, as a source of both nutrition and income.

On the Radar

The new State of Global Water Resources report, published this week by the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization (WMO), highlights “severe stress on global water supplies, with five consecutive years of below-normal river flows and reservoir inflows” around the world, Al Jazeera reports.

Water levels in the Ganges, Mekong, Amazon, and Mississippi river basins were all below average, with the latter two breaking 33-year record lows. Around the world, 3.6 billion people face “inadequate access to water” for at least one month per year — a figure that is expected to reach 5 billion by 2050. Meanwhile, the world’s glaciers lost “600 gigatonnes of water in an extreme melt year.”

Water cycles are becoming more erratic and unpredictable within a changed and rapidly changing climate. Stefan Uhlenbrook, the WMO’s director of hydrology, told reporters that “very likely this hot, dry weather continues to translate to low river flow.”

More Water News

American Water: The country’s largest regulatory and wastewater facility, which supplies water to more than 14 million people across 14 states, was the victim of a cyberattack last week, CNN reports — though “the company does not believe its facilities or operations were impacted by the attack.”

Detector Dogs: As water shortages continue across Europe, a special French dog brigade has been trained to sniff out faulty pipes and detect chlorine leaks, France24 reports.

Christian Thorsberg

Christian Thorsberg is an environmental writer from Chicago. He is passionate about climate and cultural phenomena that often appear slow or invisible, and he examines these themes in his journalism, poetry, and fiction.