LocationsUNDP Albania
Supported by Adaptation Fund: The Scientists Who Save Lives
May 28, 2025
The Drin River Basin
Photo credits: Sead Sadiku, Director at the River Basen Administration Office
If you think you know what the Institute of Geosciences (IGJEO) does, you might be wrong. You’re likely not fully aware of the highly sophisticated, deeply scientific work they do. It’s not just about “talking weather” or reporting the next earthquake. At its core, their work saves lives.
And it’s not just science. It’s about how science is used to protect people, especially in a country and region where the next flood, the next storm, or the next emergency is not a question of if, but when.
This isn’t something you’ll hear about on the evening news. But today, I want to tell you that story—the one that doesn’t usually make headlines.
It’s the story I was told when I visited the Institute, where I stood in a room surrounded by seismic wave monitors, blinking maps, weather models, and instruments I, as a social scientist, could barely understand.
But I understood one thing clearly: UNDP is helping them do all of this better. Through a regional project funded by the Adaptation Fund, UNDP is working with IGJEO and partners in Montenegro and North Macedonia to build a safer, more climate-resilient Western Balkans.
Photo credits: The Drin River Basin
Sead Sadiku, Director at the River Basen Administration Office
The Drin River Basin: A Region at Risk
The Drin River Basin—shared by Albania, Montenegro, and North Macedonia—is one of the most flood-prone regions in the Western Balkans. In recent years, extreme weather, overflowing rivers, and limited cross-border coordination have left communities, farmland, and infrastructure increasingly vulnerable. That’s why the Integrated Climate-Resilient Transboundary Flood Risk Management Project was launched. And IGJEO’s work is at the heart of Albania’s contribution.
Powering Resilience Through Data and Technology
Under this regional project, UNDP equipped IGJEO with a state-of-the-art High-Performance Computing (HPC) Cluster—the technological brain now driving real-time weather forecasts, flood risk assessments, and drought monitoring across the country and beyond.
“With this new infrastructure, we’ve completely changed the way we model floods,” says Prof. Almir Gjata, IGJEO expert.
“We now run complex hydrological models in real-time. This has increased our forecasting accuracy and allowed us to share early warnings faster with communities and civil protection structures.”
But the support didn’t stop at machines. UNDP in partnership with Adaptation Fund -modernized the server room infrastructure, expanded storage by 96TB, and developed new platforms that allow seamless data flow between IGJEO, the National Civil Protection Agency, the Water Resource Management Authority, and other regional institutions.
UNDP in partnership with Adaptation Fund -modernized the server room infrastructure, expanded storage by 96TB, and developed new platforms that allow seamless data flow between IGJEO, the National Civil Protection Agency, the Water Resource Management Authority, and other regional institutions.
UNDP Albania
In practical terms? Forecast maps, rainfall estimates, and flood alerts that once took hours or days to produce are now delivered in real-time.
From Scientific Tools to Human Safety
Beyond the tech, this is about people.
In Shkodër, the Murtemza Channel appraisal led design—guided by IGJEO’s data—will reduce flood risk for farmers and families.
Along the KK5 Channel near the Montenegro border, collaborative planning among stakeholders paired with a detailed design led by hydrotechnical data is enabling faster, targeted interventions.
Nature-based solutions, implemented with local CSOs, driven by local engagement, are helping protect communities and ecosystems alike.
This isn’t just an Albania story. It’s a Western Balkans success story.
Between 2021 and 2025, the project has:
Installed or upgraded 33 hydromet stations across three countries.
Protected 7,000 hectares of farmland.
Helped more than 2,000 people directly benefit from flood risk reduction.
Trained over 50 disaster risk officials.
Developed municipal flood action plans and PDNA tools for coordinated recovery.
And with the rollout of the UNDP Preparedness Learning Pathway, local partners are gaining the skills to turn data into action—before disaster strikes.
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Back at IGJEO, standing in front of a wall of real-time dashboards, I asked Prof. Ylber Muceku, Director of IGJEO, what makes him most proud.
He didn’t mention algorithms. He didn’t mention equipment.
“We’re doing our part to protect lives. But we couldn’t have done it without the support provided by UNDP through the Adaptation Fund,” he said.
“UNDP also helped us build a modern seismic monitoring network from the ground up—installing new seismic stations, upgrading existing ones with real-time data transmission. This support has fundamentally changed how we detect, process, and respond to disasters. This partnership has made our science visible—and made it matter more than ever.”
In a news-filled world, stories like this often go untold.
But I’m telling it now—because this is what resilience looks like.
And these are the people building it, one forecast, one model, one life-saving alert at a time.
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