Waters of Slovenia

The new state of Slovenia (20,273 km², with a population of two million) is a central European web of geographical diversity and regional vivacity, and its waters serve as a looking glass for this many faceted country. Snowflakes and raindrops eventually converge in numerous streams and rivulets, which then spume into gorges and across rapids, plunge down waterfalls, and wane in lake beds and river bottoms, from whence their large relentless bulk flows into the nearby Adriatic or the more distant Black sea. However, this is not the end of the story. With the help of the sun's benevolent rays, these waters return in the form of vapour, once again enveloping the land in mist or rain. Or, perhaps, somewhere else on this living blue-green planet another cycle begins: an incessant - though never twice identical - journey in the evolutionary spiral of this Earth's many lands.

Slovene waters are, therefore, a small link in what is the long chain of the planetary circulation of water. But it can boast over 26 000 km of permanent and torrential water courses, about 6,500 karstic caves, thousands of springs, waterfalls and gorges, highland and lowland, natural and artificial lakes. There are also the karst-limestone regions with their important accumulations of subterranean water, as well as the flysch coastline along the Adriatic Sea, and the remains of once formidable glaciers below the peaks of Triglav and Skuta.

Abstract from the book "Vode v Sloveniji" / "Waters of Slovenia", text by Dr Dušan Plut, photographs by Matevž Lenarčič, (Nazarje): EPSI, 1995