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The air temperature in Bosnia and Herzegovina is increasing (0.3 - 0.6 °C per decade), while rainfall events are more extreme. Additionally, there is an increased variability in weather conditions across all seasons, marked by rapid shifts from extremely cold to warm weather, as well as transitions from periods of exceptionally high rainfall to exceedingly dry periods. Droughts and floods pose the most significant risks. However, Bosnia and Herzegovina faces a lack of adequate information and analyses of extreme climate events, especially regarding their timing, intensity, magnitude, duration, and spatial extent. Therefore, this study aims to address these questions using the precise drought index SPEI. The identified wet years were: 1969, 1970, 1976, 1978, 1999, 2001, 2010, 2013, and 2014, while the dry years were 1961, 1971, 1983, 1990, 2000, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2012, and 2020. In the northern and western regions of BiH, the longest wet period in terms of duration and spatial extent occurred from May 2014 to July 2015. In the central and southern parts of BiH, the longest wet period extended over 19 months from February 1969 to August 1970. The longest drought with the largest spatial extent was the drought from August 2011 to July 2013. The obtained data shows a significant shift towards drier weather, as dry months have increased by 15% compared to wet months. At the same time, there has been a decrease in near-normal conditions and an increase in extremely wet months. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The climate of Southeastern Europe, where Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and Croatia are located, is changing in line with the global trends. The spatial and seasonal distribution of precipitation is changing, while the temperatures increased 0.4-0.8 oC on average compared to 1961-1990, most notably during summer (1.0-1.2 oC). Depending on the different Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios, the temperatures in this area are projected to further increase by 1.7-4.0 °C. In order to understand the effects of climate change on regional water resources, it is important to assess the impacts of these changes on the components of the water balance. The aim of this study was to determine and compare the severity of changes in annual water balance between two climate periods (1961-1990 and 1991-2020). The results indicate that climate change has a different temporal and spatial effect. All areas showed a positive trend in mean air temperature (0.29-0.36 oC per decade), reference evapotranspiration (5.96-32.14 mm per decade) while precipitation, total runoff, amount of snow and actual evapotranspiration vary depending on the location and time period. The key characteristic of the 1991-2020 period compared to 1961-1990 is the greater variation of all components of the water balance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]