What happens where a river finally meets the sea? On Albania’s south-western coast, the Vjosa river’s meeting with the Adriatic has produced one of the richest and most fragile places in the country — a mosaic of lagoons, salt marshes, sand dunes and woods that is far more than the sum of its parts.
PhD (c) Ledi Selgjekaj, who pursues her doctoral studies at the University of Debrecen in Hungary while conducting fieldwork in the protected landscape of Vjosa-Narta and contributing to the bird conservation programme of PPNEA, joined the fifth edition of Tirana Science Talks to guide the audience through this territory. Vjosa-Narta, she explained, should not be understood as an isolated lagoon, dune, forest or river, but as an entire ecosystem whose parts function together, shaped over centuries by the Vjosa river through the transport and accumulation of its sediments, which have formed the mosaic of coastal lagoons, salt marshes, wetlands and sand dunes that define the area today.
The significance of this ecosystem extends well beyond Albania’s borders. It is home to more than 200 species of wild birds, of which 33 appear on the Albanian Red List, and it holds important populations of flamingos and pelicans while also serving as a nesting site for the endangered sea turtle. Vjosa-Narta contains 18 habitat types classed as priorities for the European Union, which means that once Albania joins the Union it will be obliged to apply the Habitats Directive and the Birds Directive, instruments that protect species and habitats of European importance. This richness underpins the area’s status as a protected landscape — a designation that recognises that the ecosystem functions through the interaction of nature and people, and that its ecological and cultural values have been shaped over generations by the community that lives within it rather than apart from it.
Lying along the eastern Adriatic migratory corridor, Vjosa-Narta is a vital resting and nesting ground for birds travelling between Africa and Europe. It provides habitat for common and endangered species alike, including the pied avocet, offers shelter and food for the Dalmatian pelican, and is the only place in Albania where flamingos have successfully nested. To understand how the wetland functions as a whole, Ms Selgjekaj has focused her doctoral research on the pied avocet, a colonial waterbird whose breeding behaviour reveals how species interact with one another and with their environment. Her fieldwork, carried out across the breeding season, combines nest monitoring, the ringing of individuals for tracking during migration, and camera-based observation of family life — work that in a single successful season has already covered at least 300 nesting pairs and more than 2,000 recorded hours of parental behaviour.
This ecosystem, however, now faces serious threats. The main driver of this damage is the construction of Vlora International Airport, a project sited directly within the Vjosa-Narta ecosystem. The building work has cleared habitat and disturbed the sand dunes — themselves a priority habitat and a natural monument — degrading the natural defences they provided against flooding, erosion and storms. Because the site sits on former agricultural and marshland crossed by drainage channels, the intervention carries a lasting risk of flooding even after the channels have been drained. The disturbance is not expected to end once construction is complete: when the airport becomes operational, the presence of aircraft is likely to place further pressure on the birds and raises the danger of bird strikes for the flights themselves. Alongside the airport, the attempts for construction of a resort within the protected landscape has compounded the damage, clearing sand dunes and felling trees in an area meant to be safeguarded. These interventions strip away habitats of priority importance and the natural protection they provide, further fragmenting an ecosystem that depends on each of its parts remaining intact.
The consequences are already visible. The pied avocet population around the Narta salt works has declined since 2020, as severed ecological corridors have concentrated mammals in the area and left avocet eggs increasingly exposed to predation. Interventions on the channel connecting the sea to the lagoon risk disrupting the water exchange the lagoon depends on, with salinisation threatening the very habitats the birds rely on for food. As Ms Selgjekaj stressed, disturbing one link in the ecosystem affects all the others, which is why protecting Vjosa-Narta means safeguarding not only the river but the entire delta, so that the system can continue to function as one.
About Tirana Science Talks
At SCiDEV, we believe that scientific knowledge must be accessible to the wider public and connected to societal needs. Tirana Science Talks is an independent initiative by SCiDEV, aiming to bring science closer to the public in Albania and bridging the gap between research and society. Through TST we aim to promote the massification of science, empower people to better understand and ethically apply scientific findings in everyday life. Click here to access all previous episodes.
Berk Botime supported this episode of Tirana Science Talks by offering the meeting place, and facilitating the technology to showcase and present.
