From Weather Data to Local Action: Trnovo Strengthens Flood Resilience

A mobile hydrometeorological station is helping a rural community in Bosnia and Herzegovina turn real-time information into earlier warnings, safer decisions and better agricultural planning

August 17, 2026

In Trnovo municipality, south of Sarajevo, understanding how to read the sky is a skill people learn early in their lives. They watch the river, the colour of clouds over the hills, and the speed of snowmelt in late winter. Weather shapes the rhythm of life: families plan around it and farmers depend on it, as a sudden change can put an entire season's work at risk.

But local experience alone does not always provide sufficient time to mount a response. Heavy rain can cascade swiftly down mountain slopes, while rapid snowmelt can swell streams and rivers before households and municipal services have enough time to prepare. Flooding can damage homes, sever roads, inundate pastures and fields, and leave rural families coping with lost income, damaged equipment and missed planting windows long after the water retreats.

Photo: Serene river with greenish water flows between grassy banks and rocky shore. — A river flowing through the river the Trnovo Municipality.

UNDP in BiH

This is where Trnovo's mobile hydrometeorological station has practical value: by measuring local weather conditions in real time, the station adds precise, location-specific information to the observations residents have relied on for generations. Its data can feed the wider hydrometeorological system, support more accurate alerts and give municipal authorities and emergency services a clearer picture of changing conditions.

For residents, every additional minute of warning helps. Earlier, locally relevant information can help households secure property, move vehicles and equipment, safeguard livestock, and avoid exposed roads. It can help municipal services focus attention on particularly vulnerable locations. For farmers, it can support decisions about mowing, planting, crop protection, and other work that is highly weather-sensitive.

Photograph of a weather station with anemometer cups and sensor on a pole in a yard. — Weather station, Municipality of Trnovo.

UNDP in BiH

Trnovo Mayor Miroslav Bjelica sees the station as a tool for both protection and planning:

"The hydrometeorological station is of great importance to our local community because it enables timely monitoring of weather conditions. The data it collects contributes to better protection of the population from floods and other weather disasters, but also to better planning in agriculture, infrastructure and natural resource management."

The station's value, however, depends on more than the equipment itself. Data must be maintained, interpreted and converted into clear messages that reach people in time. Municipal staff, first responders, community organizations, and residents need shared routines, protocols and frameworks: who monitors conditions, who sends a warning, how the warning is passed on, and what different groups should do next. In remote and rural areas, this 'last mile' is the catalyst to transform information into action.

Ognjen Popovic, President of the Farmers' Association, describes what timely information means for local livelihoods:

"Based on weather forecasts, we can more easily plan agricultural work, mowing grass and protecting crops. Timely information allows us to prepare in time and take measures to protect against floods and other weather disasters, thereby reducing damage to agricultural production."

Trnovo Mayor, Miroslav Bjelica (L), and Ognjen Popovic, President of the Farmers' Association (R).

UNDP in BiH

These perspectives show how the station strengthens the community as well as its forecasting network. The project connects local knowledge with real-time data, gives institutions and residents a common basis for decisions, and supports the practice of preparedness. It cannot prevent extreme weather, but it can increase the time available to protect people, livelihoods, and essential local services to ensure future resilience.

The work in Trnovo forms part of the Green Climate Fund project, Scaling up climate resilient flood risk management in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The initiative is strengthening climate information, forecasting, early warning, and local capacity across the country, with community-based systems designed to connect national expertise to action in municipalities. Its ambition is broad and the lessons are important globally, but its immediate value is felt most intensely at the local level: a warning that arrives sooner, a farmer who can change plans, a municipal team that can act before conditions become dangerous, and a rural community better prepared to face the next flood, all cohere into a more resilient community, nation and world.