Spatial planning and flood risk: the case of the Buna River, Shkoder, Albania

• Author: Ervis Krymbi
• Position: University of Shkoder 'Luigj Gurakuqi', Faculty of Social Science, Department of Geography
• Pages: 496-505

ISSN 2410-759X Balkan Journal of Interdisciplinary Research Special Issue No 1

Acces online at www.iipccl.org IIPCCL Publishing, Tirana-Albania June 2015

496

Spatial planning and ood risk: the case of the Buna River, Shkoder, Albania

Ervis Krymbi

University of Shkoder “Luigj Gurakuqi”

Faculty of Social Science

Department of Geography

Abstract

Spatial planning and hydraulic risk management are a worldwide necessity which is best achieved

when natural and articial elements located closely to watercourses are known in great detail. A

geodatabase is a practical tool to store and manage such information. Land use and land cover

changes have negative consequences on watershed management in Buna River Basin. ey increase

impervious ground surfaces, decrease inltration rate and increase runo rate, hence causing ood

during the dry seasons. is study was undertaken to achieve the natural and articial elements

connected to hydraulic risk and uvial dynamics in Buna River. rough a GIS overlay and GPS

measurements where mapped elements include buildings, hydraulic works, weirs, drainage outlets,

riverbanks, structural damages, uvial bars and eroding banks. Consequently a GIS geo database

was built to visualize the spatial distribution of the mapped elements and to store a series of

technical data, including the present preservation condition for man-made objects. GPS data was

integrated in GIS to examine the extent of land use and cover change in the sub catchment of Buna

River. Both quantitative and qualitative data were used for this study. e geo database provides

an overview of the territories connected with the uvial dynamics, highlighting that in the studied

territory; the more is urbanized, the more it is exposed to hydraulic risk.

Key words: Spatial planning, Flood risk, Buna River.

Introduction

Spatial planning is an important part of integrated river basin management because so

much of what happens to water concerns development on land. It is important that land-

use is managed in such a way that water supply can be assured and that hydrological

processes are not interrupted. e eects of urban planning and land cover changes on

the hydrological system are considerable and deserve necessary pro-active planning for

compensation of the negative eects. e natural dynamic evolution of a river and the

adjacent morphological environment are particularly important for the communities that

concentrate in these areas their socio-economic activities. In addition the anthropogenic

pressure plays a fundamental role in inuencing the rate of the uvial processes. e

combination of both factors involves all the major rivers, so that today it is not easy to

nd long uvial reaches free of human intervention (Rinaldi, 1995). Integrating spatial

planning and ood risk management is a sustainable approach to deal with ood

issue (Howe and White, 2004, White and Richards, 2007). Spatial planning inuences

the critical factors of ood risk such as location of activities, type of land use, scale of

development and design of physical structures (White and Richards, 2007, Neuvel and

Van Der Knaap, 2010). Spatial planning can inuence those critical factors on dierent

spatial scales, from local plans to national or even international strategic plans (White and

Richards, 2007, Wynn, 2005). Integration of spatial planning and ood risk management

has three dimensions: territorial, policy and institutional integration. is integration