The situation with water supply in Croatia is not alarming, but it requires rational consumption across the country," the state-owned water management company, Hrvatske Vode, said on Friday.

“Small communities in continental Croatia that get their water supplies from small local sources may have difficulties with water supply if the present drought continues, but we hope there will be rain soon,” Danko Biondic, head of the Development Department at Hrvatske Vode, told the Croatian state news agency Hina.

As for cities, for example Zagreb, there is no risk of water shortage because Zagreb gets its water supplies from the local aquifer. The same is true for coastal cities such as Rijeka, Zadar, Sibenik, Split, and Dubrovnik, he added.

The water restrictions currently in force in Istria County are not expected to affect the tourist industry because they are not tough, Biondic said. He explained that Istria is one of the most vulnerable regions in Croatia when it comes to water shortages, because natural watersheds there are relatively small and do not have a sufficient accumulation capacity.

Istria’s key water supply facility is the Butoniga reservoir, which supplies the entire western coast of Istria south of the Lim Channel, and north of it if necessary, Biondic said.

The restrictions currently in place in Istria have reduced water consumption by 13-14 percent. The Butoniga reservoir currently has 2 million cubic metres of water, and “no alarming situation is expected,” Biondic said.

Drought is a natural phenomenon that intensifies every 10 to 15 years, and the last intensive drought in Croatia occurred in 2012, Biondic said.