Heatwave: Serbia faces its climate vulnerabilities
Published for the French media "Le Courrier des Balkans" on August 6 2026.
Andjela Veličković
Originally published in French here
The drought caused by the intense heat of recent days is putting Serbia’s infrastructure under severe strain, exposing its vulnerability to climate change.
A new heatwave has been sweeping across Europe for several days. In Serbia, temperatures are hovering between 35°C and 40°C, with the north of the country also caught under the heat dome currently covering Central Europe. As the Danube dries up, the energy sector is being pushed to its limits, highlighting the shortcomings of Serbia’s infrastructure in the face of extreme weather events.
After our colleagues reported historically low water levels on Europe’s second-longest river at the beginning of the week, the water level at the Bezdan pumping station fell further on Wednesday, 5 August, reaching -169 centimetres. This prompted provincial authorities to declare a state of emergency in the municipalities of Vrbas, Sombor and Kula.
The Danube’s low flow, observed across the entire basin, is disrupting several sectors. It is restricting commercial navigation and reducing hydroelectric power generation: the Đerdap 1 and 2 hydropower plants are operating at just 30% of their usual capacity.
The transport of petroleum products by river has also been disrupted. Energy Minister Dubravka Đedović Handanović said that, due to the barges’ reduced capacity, imports had reached only 25% of the amount initially planned for July.
The water shortage is also threatening supplies to the Danube-Tisa-Danube (DTD) irrigation canal network in Vojvodina, on which numerous farms depend.
According to the network’s operator, Vode Vojvodina, authorities have banned water withdrawals from the system since Tuesday, 4 August, until the river returns to its normal level. The scale of agricultural losses is not yet known.
Energy supply under pressure
While the situation is particularly critical in Vojvodina, the south of the country has also been hit by the intense heat. According to the European electricity transmission network ENTSO-E, all of Serbia’s hydropower plants are operating below capacity due to low water flows. Thermal power plants are also running at reduced capacity, as water shortages are limiting their cooling systems.
With oil and electricity supplies under pressure, is Serbia facing an energy crisis?
On Wednesday, Dušan Živković, director of state-owned power utility EPS, told RTS that electricity distribution remained guaranteed across the country despite the situation.
The energy minister echoed this assessment, saying she was counting on oil company NIS to offset the slowdown in petroleum product imports. “Based on current production levels and the quantities of crude oil available to NIS that the refinery is able to process, supplies will remain stable and regular in August,” she said. She also assured that “the state has its own strategic reserves to intervene if necessary.”
The ministry has nevertheless called on provincial and municipal authorities to take measures to ensure reliable water distribution in their respective areas. The public, meanwhile, has been urged to use water and electricity “rationally and moderately.”
Infrastructure put to the test
While energy supplies do not appear to be at immediate risk, the current episode highlights Serbia’s structural vulnerability to climate change. According to the ND-GAIN index, which assesses countries’ exposure and capacity to adapt to climate change, Serbia, alongside Bosnia and Herzegovina, is the most vulnerable country in Europe.
In response, Vojvodina’s authorities have allocated 270 million dinars (€2.3 million) to dredge canals and secure the pumping station serving the Danube-Tisa-Danube network. Yet an exceptionally low level of the Danube had already been recorded in May, Nova ekonomija reports.
For Jelena Đurović Rajak, a councillor from the Zeleno-levi front in Sombor, the problem is primarily political. Designed in the 1970s both to prevent flooding and irrigate up to one million hectares, the DTD network has barely been modernised since it was put into operation. “The fact that we do not have a system capable of coping with drought and climate change is not a matter of fate, but the result of decades of misguided political priorities,” she said.
For now, the infrastructure is still capable of maintaining energy supplies despite reduced capacity. The question is whether it can withstand a prolonged period of drought, as extreme weather events are expected to become increasingly frequent.