ANALYSIS OF FLOODS ON THE SAVA RIVER IN THE HISTORICAL RECORD

Abstract

This paper presents the largest floods in the upper, middle and lower courses of the Sava River in the historical record. The Radovljica water gauging station is representative for the upper course, the Litija water gauging station for the middle course, and the Čatež water gauging station for the lower course. In the upper course of the Sava River, the highest flood waves were recorded at the beginning of the 20th century. The largest flood occurred on 30 October 1926. In the middle course of the Sava River, the largest flood occurred on 4 August 2023, which surpassed the previous highest flood wave on 2 November 1990. In the lower course of the river, the largest flood occurred on 19 September 2010. The August 2023 flood ranked fourth in the lower course in terms of the peak height of the flood. In the upper course of the Sava River, fewer flood events exceeded the characteristic high-water values than in the middle and lower courses, which have a similar pattern of occurrence of flood events. In the middle of the last century, there were no large floods on the Sava River. These have been more common since the 1970s and have since occurred almost every decade. The August 2023 flood is the first exceptional flood event which occurred on the Sava River during summer; before that, all the biggest floods had occurred in the autumn and winter months.