Floods are rising in Albania, requiring a more efficient and effective coordination between civil protection authorities and the entities in charge of weather forecasting and environmental monitoring with the inclusion of professional volunteers and skilled users from the local communities and required external expertise to enhance safety of persons and property.  

This is the challenge that prompted Albania to join the EU-funded FLOODIS project to test the area of Shkodra with success in June 2015. The project FLOODIS (Integrating GMES Emergency Services with satellite navigation and communication for establishing a flood information service), a collaborative European Community project funded under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-SPACE-2013-1), ran from 2013 to 2015 under the leadership of ISMB in Turin with the participation of UNESCO through its Regional Bureau for Science and Culture in Europe in Venice.

Aiming at supporting the implementation of the EU Floods Directive 2007/60/EC in Albania, FLOODIS intends to support the development of policies and provide technical assistance necessary   to strengthen early warning and flood monitoring systems promoting the national framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. The project, implemented with UNESCO as a partner, was developed to provide disaster alert and information system leveraging on existing space and mobile communication assets for emergency response teams and affected citizens.

Following the optimal results achieved in the testing phase of the FLOODIS application, a second phase begun in order to operationalise its real time reporting function, being a highly valued service according to the Civil Protection authority in Albania, within the DEWETRA platform. The DEWETRA platform is a real-time integrated system for hydro-meteorological and wildfire risk forecasting, monitoring and prevention created by CIMA foundation, on behalf of the Italian Civil Protection Department, endorsed by the World Meteorological Organization, and operated in Albania in joint cooperation with IGEWE. The system is based on the rapid data availability for the establishment of up-to-date, reliable risk scenarios.

The objective of this on-going technical and scientific cooperation supported by UNESCO is to provide an additional tool to enhance communication flow between the Operational centres of the Civil Protection and its field agents while monitoring and reporting on targeted flood related, hazardous events at a national scale within the country.

FLOODIS application, in particular the real-time reporting module, may considerably decrease the general costs both direct and indirect of a flood related hazard as demonstrated by a dedicated Cost-benefit Analysis (CBA) undertaken by Alpha Consult in the aftermath of FLOODIS demonstration in Italy and Albania. The interface between the DEWETRA system and the FLOODIS application may spread the impact of FLOODIS beyond the national boundaries of Albania since DEWETRA is now in use in other UNESCO Member States - such as Barbados, Croatia, Lebanon and Serbia to name a few. 

The integrated FLOODIS-DEWETRA real-time reporting function test and field validation of the proposed solution are foreseen to be held in the Drin river, Shkodra, in November 2016 with the participation of the General Directorate of Civil Emergency, CIMA Foundation, ISMB, the prefecture of Shkodra with the deployment of professional civil protection response teams and of trained volunteers in the selected area of operations. The current activities that comprise a dedicated training to professional volunteers and to civil protection staff are devised in a thoughtful cooperation and synergy with the EU-funded projects CapRadNet and BE DRIN implemented by CIMA Foundation and the Italian Civil Protection Department in Albania. 

Websites: 

• http://www.floodis.eu/
• http://www.bedrin.eu/