prijava
BANJA LUKA, October 21 (FENA) - Municipality of Gradiška and UNDP have allocated 1.2 million KM to reduce the flood risk in that local community.
Work on the construction of a rainwater collection system in the Agro-industrial zone, completed today in Nova Topola, and it was implemented as part of the UNDP project “Flood Risk Reduction in the Vrbas River Basin”, funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) in cooperation with the RS Ministry of Spatial Planning, Construction and Ecology, municipalities in the Vrbas River Basin and other partners.
UNDP Resident Representative in BiH Steliana Nedera stressed that the project was implemented at 21 locations in the Vrbas River Basin, reducing the flood risk for 50.000 residents and 190 entrepreneurs.
She added that in May this year it was already confirmed that the project was contributing to reduction of flood risk because there was no major damage to the local communities of this river basin.
Nedera specified that the project had developed a forecasting and warning platform, a flood hazard map and a flood risk management plan, which added that the Vrbas River Basin is now the most regulated in BiH and in line with river basins in Europe.
RS Minister of Spatial Planning, Construction and Ecology Srebrenka Golić said that the aim of the project in the Agro-industrial Zone in Nova Topola was to bring rainwater to the recipient through two pumping stations and the construction of a main sewer and secondary network, thereby reducing risk of floods.
She recalled that over the past 10 years, flood damage exceeded 160 million in 14 local communities in the Vrbas River Basin, of which 130 million KM was caused by the floods in 2014.
Since 2015, the RS ministry, in cooperation with UNDP, has provided five million dollars for the implementation of a flood risk reduction project in 14 local communities in the Vrbas River Basin, and more than 60 percent of the funds have been allocated on infrastructure.
The Mayor of Gradiška Zoran Adžić said that during heavy rain, the area of Nova Topola Agro-industrial Zone would become a small lake, and that it was not possible to further develop the zone without the construction of a rainwater drainage system.
The project built 1,400 meters of storm sewer and created preconditions for collecting atmospheric precipitation.
(FENA) A. B.
