Under the regional project Green Agenda: Climate Change Adaptation in the Western Balkans (WB Adapt) implemented by GIZ, the Municipality of Prishtina has launched its comprehensive Climate Risk Assessment (CRA) and Urban Mobility Action Plan. This study applies the framework of the GIZ Climate Risk Sourcebook (2023) to establish a data-driven, empirical foundation. The findings integrate climate resilience directly into Prishtina’s future Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) updates, local climate action planning, and municipal capital infrastructure procurement frameworks.
Core Findings: Systemic Trapping & Infrastructure Strain
Prishtina’s rapidly growing urban core combines a highly car-dependent ecosystem with a topographically constrained basin. This pressure is severely compounded by the historical channelling of its primary streams underground, destroying open blue cooling infrastructure and limiting natural water absorption. The assessment identifies critical multi-hazard vulnerabilities across the transport network:
• Urban Heat Islands & Extreme Heatwaves (Critical Tier): Driven by a warming trend of 0.4°C per decade, hot days exceeding 30°C are projected to more than double, rising to 40–60 days per year by mid-century under the RCP 8.5 scenario. Remote sensing tracks severe Land Surface Temperature (LST) anomalies up to 6°C higher than rural baselines in Qendra and Lakrishtë. This places 100% of pedestrian underpasses, 68.70% of parking spaces, and 59.50% of traffic signaling nodes in high-heat zones, causing pavement rutting and frequent mechanical cooling failures on steep public transport routes.
• Pluvial Flooding & Precipitation Extremes (Moderate Tier): While annual totals remain stable, daily precipitation extremes are projected to intensify by 20–25% (reaching up to 38–42 mm/day). High surface sealing regularly creates pluvial flooding sinks along active transport links, standing water in painted bike lanes, and submerged underpasses.
• Geomorphological Instability & Winter Freeze-Thaw Stress (Localized Tier): Prishtina ranks first in Kosovo for geomorphological slope failures that damage transport infrastructure. Saturating rains directly threaten 33.30% of structural road bridges (1 out of 3 major spans) and peripheral road networks along the steep hillsides of the Arbëria neighborhood. Concurrently, volatile winter freeze-thaw cycles continue to crack pavements and accelerate deep pothole formation. This winter risk is severely exacerbated by intense atmospheric inversions that trap vehicle and lignite emissions, driving the Air Quality Index (AQI) up to an unhealthy 186.
Priority Interventions: The Resilient Capital Roadmap
To transition Prishtina from a posture of reactive repairs to targeted, proactive engineering adaptations, the Action Plan maps out five strategic development pathways:
• Shading and Cooling Infrastructure: Implementing native, drought-resistant urban greening canopies along unshaded active transit corridors (such as Mother Teresa Boulevard and the Grand Hotel–Technical Faculty axis) while retrofitting heat-exposed bus stops with reflective structural shelters.
• Sustainable Stormwater Management: Redesigning drainage systems in flood-prone districts (Kalabria, Mati, Lakrishtë) and converting 103,000 $m^2$ of surface parking lots into open-cell concrete grass pavers and bioswales to absorb localized runoff and lower heat retention.
• Climate-Resilient Public Transport Fleets: Modernizing the transit network by phasing out old private diesel buses and mandating that future tenders specify low-emission vehicles equipped with heavy-duty HVAC cooling compressors and high-traction braking systems.
• Geotechnical Slope Stabilization: Installing retaining walls, rock-fall netting, sub-surface drainage trenches, and continuous automated slope-monitoring sensors along vulnerable inclines in Arbëria to secure bridges and rail lines.
• Unified IoT Climate Vulnerability Database: Deploying an Internet of Things (IoT) network of smart sensors to monitor pavement temperatures, underpass water-logging levels, and slope movements in real time, embedding these indicators directly into all future infrastructure procurement contracts.
