Climate Change Adaptation Actions in Tirana, Albania

The study “Climate Change Adaptation Actions in Tirana” discusses Tirana’s changing weather patterns, their consequences, and the city’s climate adaptation responses to the problem.

Tirana, an Albanian city, experiences increases in temperatures, causing hotter summers and more heatwaves. In some urban areas where there is a density of buildings, structures, and pavements, an urban heat island can occur, raising demands for cooling or power to cool its residents.

The increasing intensity of rainfall and its changing patterns either brought about flooding and riverside erosion or contributed to droughts and dry days, which increased spending for cooling and health services for the elderly and vulnerable population.

The city identified a need to integrate climate change into urban planning and decision-making in sectors like water infrastructure, public services, and transport to address these changing weather patterns.

Researchers have used a Climate Compass tool, including a vulnerability assessment, to determine the areas or sectors that need adaptation. The results of the vulnerability assessments have identified areas that need adaptation, which the study’s researchers used as case studies. 

These areas have the following characteristics:  

• highly urbanised areas with medium to high-rise buildings,
• the infrastructure that is under stress due to high population and growth, spaces with illegal structures,
• limited or no green areas,
• areas at risk for river flooding,
• areas with large roads and intensive traffic,
• poor air conditions and
• with a high risk of urban flooding.

The study has also identified good climate adaptation practices in the city. These practices consist of ongoing Tirana river restoration that will mitigate flood risks and improve the banks, eradication of waste and river pollution, and improvements in the city centre area that include developing new Boulevards, housing areas, and green corridors, focusing on sustainable solutions, climate-friendly designs, and constructions.

The study states that this ongoing climate adaptation work will produce interim results that can serve as a guide to city administrators, decision-makers, and policy-makers on how to further adaptation work. These adaptation projects are mostly structural measures—green structures, water systems, and building design.

However, the study also considers non-structural measures in depth, which can be used by sectors and municipalities facing the same climate change issues.

Climate adaptation is beginning to take momentum around the world as governments and communities acknowledge that climate actions, both adaptation and mitigation, are sustainable in the long term as they can reduce losses, preserve assets, and improve communities.

The study discusses practical climate adaptation solutions that communities and local governments can apply in their areas.

To know about these adaptation actions that Tirana city is doing, click the link below: