TIRANA, Jan. 12 – 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.
The latest flash flooding during the past week proved Albania has 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.
Last week’s flash floods after only few days of heavy raining also severely hit central Albanian areas which had not experienced such flooding in decades, unveiling lack of prevention measures and the continuous damage of water resources during the past two decades. The situation could have been worse in northern Albania if the water gates in the country’s biggest hydropower plants on the River Drin cascade would open. Thanks to prolonged drought, the heavy rainfall served to increase the declining water levels of the reservoirs of the three state-run hydropower plants, which account for the overwhelming majority of domestically produced hydro-electricity.
Last year’s February flooding in southern Albania was severer causing considerable damage to agriculture, livestock, houses and businesses and local infrastructure, estimated at millions of euros. The situation also slightly affected GDP growth and contributed to a slight decline in the agriculture sector in the third quarter of the year.
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.
