Second Edition
This report provides an up-to-date overview of environment and climate in the Western Balkans highlighting existing gaps with respect to the EU acquis. The aim is to provide accurate and complete environmental information to monitor the progress in the accession process, as well as to support the implementation of the Green Agenda for the WB with particular reference to depollution and decarbonisation pillars and more general to support environmental management. In this edition, particular emphasis is made on the impacts of climate change on hydrological aspects (rainfall, droughts, surface and groundwater), forest fires and heat waves. This information is also relevant for the EU Green Deal zero pollution ambition, since the depollution in WB economies is expected to reduce the transboundary pollution in neighbouring and in other EU Member States as well. There has been evident progress in the alignment with EU acquis on environment and climate, however, its implementation is still slow and insufficient. Despite the decreasing trends of air pollutant concentrations, air quality remains a significant problem for both the Western Balkans and neighbouring EU countries. From the human health perspective, PM2.5 has the largest impact on premature deaths and morbidity. Further reducing the concentration of this pollutant would result in economic benefits across the entire region. Increasing absolute sulphur oxides’ emission trend is of major concern, which still has the largest exceedance relatively to the defined ceiling. The stagnating GHG emissions trend does not correspond to the emission reduction rate needed to reach 2030 goals. WB is under the strong influence of climate changes, reflected in the altered precipitation regime, the frequency and intensity of heat waves, as well as the occurrence of forest fires. Major threats such as soil erosion, pollution, sealing, nutrient mismanagement led to widespread soil degradation across the WB region. However, the complexity and diversity of soil types, along with a lack of most recent data, made it difficult to provide a comprehensive assessment within this report. Efforts were made to improve the status of water through investments in wastewater infrastructure, regulatory improvements aligned with EU standards, and monitoring systems. However, key stressors such as untreated wastewaters, agricultural runoff, and the combined effects of climate change and hydromorphological degradation, strongly affect the water management across the Western Balkans region.
BELIS Claudio;
DJATKOV Djordje;
DOBRICIC Srdan;
DE MEIJ Alexander;
KOLAREVIĆ Stoimir;
ARIAS NAVARRO Cristina;
WOJDA Piotr;
JONES Arwyn;
LAMY Marie-Cecile;
PORCEL RODRIGUEZ Elena;
MARINOV Dimitar;
LETTIERI Teresa;
2024-12-12
Publications Office of the European Union
JRC140061
978-92-68-22515-8 (online),
1831-9424 (online),
EUR 40133,
OP KJ-01-24-176-EN-N (online),
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC140061,
10.2760/1865356 (online),
