Slovenia was devastated by flooding in 2023 - how is it preparing for extreme rain in the future?

Before diving into Slovenia's flood resilience plan, let's review the latest data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service, which confirms that 2023 was indeed the warmest year on record. The past 12 months were almost 1.5 degrees Celsius above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average.

The higher temperatures are being attributed to several factors - mainly more greenhouse gas emissions, warmer oceans and lower sea ice concentrations.

We also had the warmest December on record, with temperatures over 0.8 degrees Celsius above the 1991-2020 average. In Europe it was much colder than average from Scandinavia to Russia, and then unusually warm from Ireland to the Black Sea. December was wet for many of us, with a succession of storms in western, central and eastern Europe.

"More than two thirds of the entire country was flooded instantly," recalls Neža Kodre, Director of the Slovenian Water Agency as she remembers the devastating effects of heavy rain last August.

Six months later, and the country is in the middle of a major flash flood adaptation effort designed to make Slovenia much more resilient to the intense rainfall associated with climate change.

There are 250 active sites along water courses across Slovenia, where huge trucks and excavators work to build up weirs, widen riverbanks and raise embankments. Work has already finished on more than 700 other similar sites.

At the spot we visit, near the town of Kamnik, Kodre explains the plan: "We are establishing the basic flow of the riverbed by removing material. At the same time, we relocated the embankment, thereby giving space to the river."

Nearly everyone was hit by the floods last August - 183 of the 212 municipalities in Slovenia were impacted. The country experienced