TIRANA, March 30 – The early 2015 massive flooding in south-western Albania affected some 400,000 people and thousands of hectares of crops, causing damage of about Euro 110 million, a report shows.
An EU floods protection infrastructure project has unveiled that the situation was not merely a result of uninterrupted one-week rainfall leading to rivers overflowing their banks, but mostly a human impact on the environment.
The report unveiled environmental degradation, mismanagement of water collection system, lack of risk assessment in the use of land and settlements and social vulnerabilities in the affected areas.
A €6 million EU-funded project is financing 16 flood prevention infrastructure projects, including flood embankments, irrigation and drainage canals and pumping stations in the affected regions of Vlora, Fier, Gjirokastra, Berat and Korà§a.
Last January, central Albania areas were also hit by flash flooding following only few days of heavy rainfall, unveiling lack of prevention measures and the continuous damage of water resources during the past two decades.
Floods at the beginning of the year are becoming routine in Albania as climate change effects are making them severer with an economic and social impact on thousands of households countrywide.
Albanian authorities have failed to take a proactive approach on floods which are also having a negative impact on already struggling economy, especially the agriculture sector which employs about half of the country’s population but provides only 20 percent of the GDP.
Agriculture is one of the most climate-sensitive of all economic sectors, and without a clear plan for aligning agricultural policies with climate change, the livelihoods of rural populations are at risk, says the World Bank in a publication over reducing the vulnerability of Albania’s agricultural systems to climate change.
In its latest report on the climate challenge for the Western Balkans, the World Bank warns climate change will affect both hydropower production and agriculture.
“Hydropower which plays an important role in the region’s electricity supply, will be at risk. In Albania for example the annual average output from large hydropower plants could be reduced by 15 percent and 20 percent for smaller plants,” says the World Bank.
More than anything else, agriculture anchors the lives of the people of Albania, providing the income basis for most of the population and serving as an employment safety net.
“Adaptation is key to the future, including utilizing afforestation and barriers to protect arable land from soil erosion, introducing drip irrigation and modernizing existing systems, planting native crops that would be resistant to changes in climate, improving field and soil management including minimum tillage and contour cropping to slopes,” says the World Bank.
