Areas Exposed to Inundations in the Dravinja River System

Abstract

This study of the geography of inundation areas in the Dravinja river system, along the southwestern fringe of the Dravsko polje plain, gives a rather rounded picture of the development, character, and extent of floods, i.e., of inundation areas, in all their complex dependencies on the climate, structure of rocks, soil, relief, vegetation, and man. It has been possible to establish that man has caused with his intervention in nature that the torrential character of the river Dravinja and of its tributaries has been greatly increased, he has caused a speeded erosion of the soil, and in the inundation areas the sedimentation of a more and more thickly grained sand, and the lateral erosion. Because of all this, some settlements that had earlier known no floods, have been recently already reached by inundations. A special chapter of the present study is devoted to the problem of the economic exploitation of the inundation areas which are situated in the midst of an almost completely agrarian countryside and serve with their extensive meadows as basis for the local cattle-breeding. Settlements have generally avoided inundation areas. In these areas exposed to inundations we can find along the brooks numerous mills and sawmills only which, however, have been mostly derelicted during the last decade.