THE HIDDEN PRESSURE ON ALBANIA’S GROUNDWATER: EVIDENCE FROM ALL RIVER BASINS

Enkelejda GJINALI , Arben PAMBUKU , Santino SPAHIU , Fationa SINOJMERI , Oltion MARKO , Gea GJINALI , Tamas KONCSOS , Dritan TOPI

DOI: 10.21163/GT_2027.221.12

ABSTRACT: This paper presents an integrated assessment of groundwater stress across Albania’s major river basin systems Drin–Buna, Mati, Ishëm–Erzen, Shkumbin, Seman, and Vjosa including transboundary waters, using national environmental monitoring data. Groundwater conditions were compared for two five-year reference periods, 2005–2009 and 2020–2024, and assessed using the Integrated Groundwater Stress Assessment (IGSA), which combines normalized reference-period groundwater-level change, variability, drought conditions, recovery capacity, and anthropogenic pressure on a common 0–1 stress scale. Developed by the authors for the Albanian data-limited context, IGSA is used here as an application-oriented, screening-level framework. Rather than introducing a new physical groundwater-balance or groundwater-drought metric, the study evaluates IGSA as a domain-specific, screening-level composite architecture that integrates complementary stress dimensions for basin comparison under heterogeneous monitoring conditions. The framework is made explicit through component definitions, normalization and weighting rules, quantitative robustness tests, and an external benchmark, while the limitations to full historical five-component reconstruction are documented. To our knowledge, this is the first basin-scale application of this integrated architecture in Albania. The results show pronounced spatial heterogeneity. Ishëm–Erzen has the highest integrated stress (IGSA = 0.82), followed by Shkumbin (0.66), while Vjosa shows comparatively lower stress (0.44); Drin–Buna, Mati, and Seman occupy intermediate positions. The strongest stress patterns occur in more urbanized and intensively exploited systems, where groundwater abstraction, wastewater pressures, seasonal demand, and hydroclimatic variability interact. Complementary environmental and water quality evidence including wastewater treatment data available through 2026, surface water and bathing water quality data through 2025, tourism growth through 2025, and climate conditions is used to contextualise these pressures rather than being treated as direct causal inputs to IGSA. The findings support IGSA as a first-order screening and prioritisation framework under data-limited conditions and highlight the need for strengthened groundwater monitoring, improved abstraction control, integrated wastewater management, and basin-scale planning that accounts for hydroclimatic variability and increasing seasonal demand.

Keywords: Transboundary waters; Groundwater stress; Aquifer dynamics, IGSA, Hydroclimatic variability; Environmental assessment; Water quality; Monitoring network; Resource depletion; Albania.

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