How much does flood protection cost? - $115 million per year to "save" until 2031
Farmers, citizens, and businesses are facing significant economic damage this year due to flooding in several municipalities across the country, as a result of bad weather and intense rainfall.
But how much does it cost Albania to cope with the risk posed by floods and climate change and floods, if it were to make the necessary investments in this direction?
In 2019, the government approved the National Irrigation and Drainage Strategy 2019–2031 and the action plan, which is still active and focused precisely on taking concrete measures in this direction to prevent floods, but apparently 7 years later, the effects have been minimal.
But how much would all the necessary intervention cost to avoid this phenomenon that brings incalculable damage every year to Albanian families, and how much can the state budget afford?
According to the assessment made by the Ministry of Agriculture, for a period of 10-13 years, where the calculation has been made since 2019, the total cost for the rehabilitation and modernization of irrigation infrastructure, drainage infrastructure, irrigation reservoir dams and flood protection facilities is around 717 million USD.
Of this total, 253.6 million USD is estimated to be spent on the rehabilitation and modernization of irrigation infrastructure to enable irrigation on a potentially irrigable area of 360 thousand ha; 56.5 million USD on restoring drainage infrastructure to optimal parameters on a potentially passable area of 280 thousand ha; 130.2 million USD on the rehabilitation of 410 dams (or about 65% of the total number) to increase their safety and guarantee water resources for existing schemes; 276.8 million USD on increasing the safety of protection against river and sea flooding, through the rehabilitation/reconstruction of existing embankments and the construction of new structures.
Meanwhile, deducting the investments that have been made so far, which are estimated at an average of 30 million dollars per year, Albania still needs approximately 700 million dollars to solve this problem.
This means that if it were covered by the state budget, an average of approximately $115 million per year would need to be made available until 2031 in order to solve this problem, while the annual funds allocated for this item in the budget only cover 30 percent of the investment need, which focuses mainly on investments in river embankments, drainage channels and maintenance.
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