The frequency of agricultural drought in Slovenia has been increasing in recent decades. Since year 2000, natural disaster due to drought was declared seven times in Slovenia, the most severe of which occurred in 2003, 2012, 2013, 2017 and 2022. Drought keeps occurring with increasing intensity and in areas and seasons where there have not been problems in the past. An additional risk for drought damage in agriculture present rapidly developing droughts in summer (so-called "flash droughts"), which occur during heat waves.

Soil drought has a key impact on plant development and consequently on various industries (forestry, agriculture, …) . Indicators of the number of drought days and the duration of drought periods in individual years show an increase especially after 1990. Similarly, the analysis of the impact of the climate change up to 2100 shows that soil water deficits will increase in the future. The number and the duration of the droughts will increase.

Water protection areas (WPA) cover 17.4% of Slovenia's territory. The land use structure in water protection areas is dominated by forest (62.1 %), followed by grassland (13.5 %) and arable land (10.5 %). The amount of built-up land in the water protection areas is increasing, while a decrease in arable land and an increase in the share of organically farmed land indicate positive changes in the direction of extensification of land use.