Wintertime environmental issues in Bosnia and Herzegovina and its region

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With the winter season, those living in the northern hemisphere are almost guaranteed to picture a cozy, lazy holiday day  that  provides an escape from the cold.

 Yet,  we rarely picture the environmental issues that are introduced,  if not even amplified in this season.

One of the most visible forms of pollution during the winter season are smog and wintertime inversions, that are both connected in a few ways.

Smog, as its name suggests (smoke+fog), is defined as the mixture of fog, smoke and atmospheric pollutants that is considered unhealthy or irritating. 

Its negative effects are further enhanced with wintertime inversions that create two separate layers of air (hot layer of air over the cold layer), and thereby trap air pollutants in the lower part of the atmosphere where most of the population lives.

The fog facilitates many other chemical reactions and the number of pollutant particles rises.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina these phenomenons are readily observed, especially in Sarajevo, which sometimes has the lowest measured temperature of all of the European capitals.

Sarajevo's always had a great problem with smog, and it's especially visible during the winter season. 

To make matters worse, the amount and number of different air pollutants rises with an increase in burning coal or using any other non-renewable form of energy, that are especially needed during the cold periods.

Apart from these „known? environmental issues, we often overlook the dangers of lurking pollutants such as road salt. Yes, even road salt that is used for thawing snow can in nonrational quantities pose a threat to the environment.

We all know from basic chemistry that salts are composed of ions, or charged particles that lower the freezing point of water, thus causing thawing of snow, yet the environmental issues coupled with road salts are numerous. 

The main problem is that these salts do not disappear on their own, as many surely believe, but they seep off in groundwater or any other water surface that is receiving the thawed snow particles. 

They can even be found miles away from their original location, as they're often transported around  on tires or as droplets of fog that evaporate from the surface.

Of course, these salts do not necessarily have to be „harmless? NaCl, but can include a wide variety of industrial salts whose effects can prove to be toxic or even lethal to wildlife and vegetation.

Good road salt management can keep these harmless effects at a minimum, and also prove to be economically favorable.

These are some photos of  Bosanska Krupa covered in snow, and of some seasonal (still unexpected) „witnesses? that the rivers of my hometown aren't significantly polluted – I mean the white friends of course.