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Central Europe and other parts of the world have experienced numerous extreme floods and prolonged periods of very low water discharges. With the increasing length and availability of hydrological data time series, it is now possible to analyse a larger volume of data. This paper presents long-term of changes in seasonal and maximum discharges. This paper aims to comprehensively assess the hydrological regime changes of Slovak rivers, using data from 26 gauging stations based on 90 years of observation. The study’s first part explores monthly flow changes within each year for selected Slovak rivers. The second part identifies changes in the maximum daily discharges, their long-term trends, and their occurrences. Additionally, we have compared the variability of the hydrological regime of the Slovak rivers with the variability of the hydrological regime of selected gauging stations on the Danube River and its tributaries, such as the Drava, Sajó, and Tisa rivers, to understand broader regional patterns. The findings show that the rivers selected exhibit relatively high intra-annual runoff variability, with various changes in the runoff regime curve based on the long-term monthly Pardé coefficient. For the Slovak region, maximum annual runoff variability is observed in the Krupinica and Plašťovce rivers (reaching a maximum of 12.1 during the period 1930–1960), while minimum annual runoff variability is observed in the Biely Váh River (2.205 for the period 1930–1960). The long-term trend analysis of the Burn index time series for maximum daily discharges over the entire period from 1930/31 to 2019/20, as well as the significance of trends during the summer-autumn and winter-spring seasons, shows that stations exhibited decreasing, stable, or increasing trends. The most significant increasing trend was observed at sixteen of the stations analyzed: at seventeen stations during the summer-autumn season and at nine stations during the winter-spring season over the period from 1930/31 to 2019/20.

Climate change is a global crisis exacerbated by human activity and a matter of urgent concern. There is a significant knowledge gap among primary school students in Serbia, as the topic of climate change is barely covered in the curriculum. This study examines their awareness, knowledge and attitudes. Of the participants, 96.6% are aware of climate change, but their knowledge and attitudes vary considerably. Some 80.10% expect climate change to have a significant impact on humans through floods (90%), droughts and temperature increases (85% each). Further results show that schools are a key source of information (35.10%), followed by television (30.10%) and the internet (14.90%). In summary, this study highlights the need for comprehensive, multidisciplinary climate education to address different levels of awareness, encourage informed and proactive responses and engage young voices in discussions about climate change.

In this study, we explored the frequency and occurrence rate of maximum river discharges in the Una and Sana rivers, to understand hydrological variations amidst climate change. We categorized maximum discharges into severe (Una River M1>98.2m³/s; Sana River M1>118.2m³/s) and extreme (Una River, M2, > 123.4m³/s; Sana River M2> 246.4m³/s) events, and identified trends in these events, crucial for assessing environmental impacts. Our findings reveal a nuanced pattern: both rivers experience an increase in severe events from 58 to 55 and 56 to 54 days return period respectively, indicating complex hydrological dynamics. The trends underscore the significant shifts in annual event occurrences, the evolving nature of river systems and underscore the necessity for adaptive management strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A direct consequence of the global climate change is the alteration of seasonal precipitation patterns and as a consequences pluvial flood in urban areas becoming more frequent. In this study, precipitation patterns for the city of Novi Sad were analysed for the 1961-2020 period. For the extraction of extreme precipitation values, the peaks-over-threshold method was applied with the threshold level set at the 90th percentile. For the inspection of time-dependent occurrence rates and assessment of significant changes, a Kernel estimation was applied. For the assessment of the significances of the occurrence rate estimation Cox-Lewis (CL) test was used. The obtained results indicate decreasing trends in occurrence rate and frequency of minor and strong events in the second half of the 20th century. On the other hand, we argue that there is the increase of occurrence rate and frequency of extreme events at the beginning of the new millennia. Regarding the occurrence and frequency of the extreme events a clear increase in occurrence rate and frequency can be observed, especially when frequency is observed as from the year 2000 a total of 11 of these extreme years occurred in contrast to six events prior 2000. The application of the CL test yields a decreasing trend of strong events and increasing trend of extreme events. The p values are as small as 0.0336 and 0.0034 respectively. The test confirms what confidence bands display, i.e., more and more extreme participations per decade towards the modern times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]