09 December 2014
09.12.2014- The establishment of the Early Flood Warning System in the Drin basin was realized within the framework of the Climate Change and Adaptation project in the Western Balkans. The project donor is the German Government through GIZ, while the beneficiaries, besides Kosovo, also include Albania, Macedonia, and Montenegro.
The main goal of this project is for the national institutions of the beneficiary countries that deal with monitoring meteorological and hydrological elements and phenomena, such as the Hydrometeorological Institute of Kosovo, to create sufficient human, technical, and legislative capacities, so that they are able to monitor and provide qualitative and regular information on these processes, in order to have the ability to predict, forecast, and give timely warnings regarding weather, climate, hydrology, etc.
This project started during the year 2012 and has been developed in phases, culminating in the placement and installation of meteorological and hydrometric measuring instruments at: the Drini i Bardhë River, hydrometric station/Gjonaj, and the Bistrica e Pejës River station/Grykë e Rugovës: (automatic water level sensor along with the system for transferring data to the central server in Prishtina via GSM/GPRS), 3 meteorological stations in Pejë, Junik, and Prizren (automatic rain gauges that measure the amount and intensity of precipitation, a heater installed in them melts snow and ice during the cold season, thus enabling the recording of solid precipitation, and the central server on which the Demasdb software program is installed).
As it is known, the issue of climate change has increasingly become a topic of discussion and activities at the highest political, economic, intellectual, and scientific levels on global, regional, and local scales, where the cause is the negative consequences and effects of these changes, which are becoming more and more evident every day in various regions and countries of the world, including here, causing floods of catastrophic proportions as well as the occurrence of extreme high temperatures causing drought.
An important part of mitigating climate change is also regional cooperation and rapid information sharing. Therefore, in this aspect, the exchange of information and regional cooperation would be useful for better preparation and timely informing of citizens and other actors, before, during, and after the occurrence of a natural disaster caused by heavy rainfall, rapid snowmelt, etc., which would cause flooding, or water scarcity in a certain area caused by a prolonged period of rainfall deficit. For more, read the full report on the project's implementation.