Recent severe weather across the Western Balkans demonstrates that urban climate risk can no longer be understood as a series of isolated disasters. Floods, storms, heatwaves, and wildfires are often discussed as independent events, each demanding its own emergency response. However, the weather experienced during the past several weeks reveals a different reality: these hazards are increasingly interconnected manifestations of the same changing climate system. Rather than occurring separately, they are unfolding in rapid succession, exposing the limitations of resilience strategies that continue to address each hazard individually.
Summer of hazards
In late June 2026, much of the Balkans remained under alerts for extreme heat as a record-breaking heatwave spread eastward across Europe. Temperatures were forecast to reach 40°C, prompting health warnings and increasing wildfire risk throughout the region. At the same time, trade unions in Macedonia urged the government to introduce emergency protections for outdoor workers, highlighting the growing occupational risks associated with prolonged exposure to extreme temperatures. Unlike several Western European countries that activated formal heat-response measures, no comparable nationwide intervention was implemented. Only weeks later, as another period of intense heat developed, ambulance services and hospitals across the region reported a marked increase in cases of dehydration, heat exhaustion, and cardiovascular complications, while meteorologists warned that further episodes of extreme heat were likely before the end of the summer.
The region experienced an equally dramatic shift in weather only days later. On 21 July 2026, a powerful storm struck Skopje after approximately thirty minutes of rapidly intensifying northerly winds. Trees were uprooted, lightweight roofs were torn from buildings, and heavy rainfall penetrated the roof of the city’s airport terminal. Electricity and internet services were disrupted in several districts, while numerous vehicles sustained damage from falling trees and debris. During the same forty-eight-hour period, meteorological agencies across the Balkans issued warnings of severe hail as the same unstable weather system moved across Bosnia and Herzegovina, southern Serbia, and Macedonia. Only weeks before the July windstorm, flooding had emerged as the dominant hazard. On 1 July 2026, an intense summer storm overwhelmed Skopje’s drainage infrastructure within minutes, inundating one of the city’s principal arterial roads and bringing traffic to a standstill.
Viewed independently, these events appear to represent unrelated weather emergencies. Considered together, however, they reveal a broader pattern. The region is not simply experiencing heavier rainfall or more frequent heatwaves; it is being exposed to a climate system that is becoming more energetic across its entire range of extremes. Higher temperatures, more intense rainfall, stronger convective storms, destructive wind events, prolonged drought, and elevated wildfire risk are increasingly occurring within the same season and often in close succession. Research examining climate trends across Europe has linked these developments to the continent’s exceptionally rapid rate of warming, which is intensifying both gradual climatic changes and short-duration extreme weather events.
Why a grey-infrastructure response falls short?
Urban resilience planning has traditionally addressed climate hazards through discrete engineering solutions tailored to specific risks. Stormwater drainage systems are designed to manage intense rainfall, cooling centres and public health measures respond to extreme heat, building regulations seek to improve structural resistance to high winds, and early warning systems provide advance notice of severe weather. Each of these interventions is an essential component of urban risk management and should remain a central element of municipal planning. However, they share a common limitation: they are primarily designed to reduce the consequences of hazards rather than the hazards themselves. This distinction is fundamental. Grey infrastructure generally functions by enabling cities to withstand or recover more effectively from extreme weather once it has occurred. For example, cooling centres protect vulnerable populations during heatwaves but do not reduce the urban heat island effect that makes densely built environments significantly warmer than surrounding landscapes. Likewise, stormwater drainage systems accelerate the removal of floodwater after heavy rainfall but do not reduce the volume of runoff generated by increasingly impervious urban surfaces. Similarly, stronger building codes improve the capacity of structures to resist high winds but do not lessen wind speeds or modify the local conditions that amplify storm impacts.
As climate change increases both the frequency and intensity of multiple weather hazards, the limitations of this reactive approach become increasingly evident. Municipalities are required to invest separately in flood protection, heat adaptation, emergency response, and structural resilience, often treating each as an independent challenge competing for the same limited financial resources. While these investments remain necessary, they rarely generate benefits beyond the specific hazard they are intended to address. Consequently, resilience planning can become fragmented, with separate policies and infrastructure programmes operating in parallel rather than as part of an integrated adaptation strategy.
Nature-based infrastructure offers a fundamentally different approach. Rather than focusing solely on reducing the impacts of extreme weather after hazards have developed, ecological interventions can modify the physical processes that intensify those hazards within urban environments. Expanding tree canopy, restoring permeable soils, rehabilitating wetlands, and improving the condition of upland forests influence the movement of water, heat, and air before they generate damaging impacts. In doing so, these interventions reduce hazard intensity rather than simply improving society’s capacity to respond.
This preventative function distinguishes nature-based infrastructure from conventional grey infrastructure. Urban vegetation, for example, intercepts rainfall before it reaches the ground, increases infiltration into soils, reduces surface runoff, and lowers peak flood flows. At the same time, the same vegetation provides shade, cools the surrounding air through evapotranspiration, improves air quality, stores carbon, and enhances urban biodiversity. Similarly, healthy upland forests regulate downstream water flows during periods of intense rainfall while simultaneously reducing erosion, maintaining soil moisture, and supporting ecosystem stability during drought. Unlike conventional engineering interventions, a single ecological investment frequently produces multiple, interconnected benefits across different climate hazards.
For this reason, nature-based infrastructure should not be viewed as an environmental amenity or a supplementary enhancement to conventional engineering. Instead, it should be recognised as a form of infrastructure in its own right, designed to perform measurable hydrological, thermal, and aerodynamic functions. Trees, soils, wetlands, and restored catchments provide ecosystem services, but they also operate as physical systems that regulate environmental processes essential to urban resilience. Their aesthetic and ecological benefits, while important, are secondary to their capacity to reduce climate-related risks.
This perspective has significant implications for municipal planning. If climate hazards are increasingly interconnected, then resilience measures should likewise be designed to address multiple hazards simultaneously. Investments that reduce only one category of risk will become progressively less cost-effective as extreme weather becomes more complex and more frequent. By contrast, interventions that moderate urban temperatures, reduce flood risk, buffer wind speeds, improve water retention, and strengthen ecosystem resilience through a single programme provide substantially greater long-term value. The objective is therefore not to replace grey infrastructure but to integrate it with ecological systems capable of addressing the underlying drivers of climate vulnerability.
Heat as the most lethal and least visible hazard
Among the climate hazards affecting the Western Balkans, extreme heat poses the greatest and most persistent threat to human health. Unlike floods or windstorms, which produce immediate and highly visible damage, heat-related mortality often occurs indirectly through dehydration, cardiovascular stress, respiratory illness, and the worsening of existing medical conditions. Consequently, the full impact of heatwaves is frequently underestimated despite evidence that they account for more deaths across Europe than any other weather-related hazard. The 2025 European heatwave, which affected Macedonia alongside much of the continent, was estimated to have contributed to more than 14,000 deaths, with temperatures exceeding 46°C in some regions. These figures illustrate that extreme heat should be regarded not simply as a seasonal inconvenience but as a major public health challenge requiring long-term adaptation.
Urban environments significantly amplify this hazard through the well-established urban heat island effect. Buildings, roads, and other impervious surfaces absorb large quantities of solar radiation during the day and gradually release that stored heat after sunset. As a result, city centres often remain several degrees warmer than surrounding rural or vegetated areas throughout the night. This persistent nighttime warming is particularly important because it limits the body’s ability to recover from daytime heat exposure, increasing health risks for older adults, individuals with chronic illnesses, young children, and residents without access to air conditioning. In densely developed neighbourhoods with limited vegetation, prolonged periods of elevated nighttime temperatures can transform a heatwave from a temporary weather event into a sustained public health emergency.
Nature-based infrastructure directly addresses the physical mechanisms that create this additional urban heat burden. Tree canopy reduces surface temperatures by intercepting incoming solar radiation before it reaches pavements and building facades, thereby limiting the amount of heat stored in urban materials. At the same time, vegetation cools the surrounding environment through evapotranspiration, whereby water absorbed by plant roots is released into the atmosphere, lowering ambient air temperatures. Together, shading and evapotranspiration can produce measurable reductions in both surface and air temperatures, improving thermal comfort at street level while reducing the intensity of the urban heat island effect.
These benefits extend beyond individual parks or tree-lined streets. A strategically planned urban canopy can lower temperatures across entire neighbourhoods, particularly where vegetation is connected through continuous green corridors rather than isolated planting schemes. Such networks enhance airflow, reduce the accumulation of heat within densely built districts, and create cooler microclimates that improve outdoor comfort and public health. In this respect, urban forests function as climate-regulating infrastructure rather than simply providing aesthetic or recreational value.
From an economic perspective, urban forestry represents a long-term investment whose effectiveness increases over time. As trees mature, their canopies expand, providing greater shade, enhanced evapotranspiration, and increased environmental benefits. Unlike many forms of mechanical infrastructure, which gradually deteriorate and require continual replacement, healthy urban forests become more effective as they age, provided they receive appropriate management and maintenance. They also generate additional co-benefits, including improved air quality, carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation, stormwater interception, and enhanced public spaces. These multiple functions substantially increase the return on investment compared with interventions designed to address only a single climate hazard.
As heatwaves become more frequent, longer in duration, and more intense under a changing climate, reducing urban temperatures at their source will become increasingly important. Municipal adaptation strategies should therefore treat urban forests and other forms of green infrastructure as critical public health infrastructure. Their value lies not only in improving urban environments but also in reducing mortality, alleviating pressure on healthcare systems, lowering energy demand for cooling, and strengthening the capacity of cities to adapt to a warming climate.
Canopy as both risk and protective infrastructure
The severe windstorm that struck Skopje on 21 July highlights an important complexity in the use of nature-based infrastructure for climate resilience. Unlike flooding or extreme heat, where vegetation almost exclusively provides protective benefits, urban trees can themselves become hazards if they fail during high winds. Falling trees and branches pose risks to people, buildings, vehicles, and critical infrastructure, making it understandable that severe storms often prompt calls for tree removal or large-scale pruning. However, such responses overlook the distinction between poorly managed urban forests and well-designed, actively maintained green infrastructure.
Tree failure during extreme weather is rarely an inevitable consequence of urban canopy itself. Instead, it is often associated with factors such as inappropriate species selection, poor structural condition, restricted root development, disease, inadequate maintenance, or the cumulative effects of urban stress. Trees planted without consideration of future climate conditions or maintained only intermittently are considerably more vulnerable to failure during increasingly intense storms. Consequently, the damage observed during the July windstorm should not be interpreted as evidence that urban canopy increases climate risk. Rather, it illustrates the importance of managing trees as critical infrastructure rather than as ornamental landscape features.
When appropriately designed and maintained, urban vegetation provides measurable protection against wind-related hazards. Rows of trees, green corridors, and strategically located shelterbelts reduce near-surface wind speeds by increasing aerodynamic roughness and disrupting airflow before it reaches buildings and pedestrians. This windbreak effect has long been recognised in agricultural landscapes, where shelterbelts are routinely used to protect crops and soils from strong winds. Increasingly, the same principles are being applied in urban environments, where carefully positioned vegetation can reduce wind velocities, limit turbulence, and moderate the forces exerted on buildings and public spaces.
These protective effects are particularly relevant in cities where sections of the building stock remain vulnerable to high winds. During the July storm, some of the most significant damage occurred to structures with lightweight roofing materials, particularly metal sheet roofing. Although vegetation cannot eliminate structural weaknesses or compensate for inadequate building standards, reducing wind speeds before they reach exposed buildings can lessen the loads imposed on vulnerable roofs and façades. Green infrastructure should therefore be understood as one component of a broader risk reduction strategy that complements, rather than replaces, improvements in construction standards and building maintenance.
The effectiveness of urban canopy as wind infrastructure depends heavily on long-term management. Species selection should prioritise trees capable of tolerating stronger wind loads and changing climatic conditions. Regular structural pruning, monitoring of tree health, adequate rooting space, and appropriate soil management all contribute to greater stability and reduce the likelihood of failure during severe storms. These practices require sustained investment, but they transform urban forests from potential liabilities into resilient components of municipal infrastructure.
Controling to water as we can`t control the weather
Flooding is often treated as a distinct climate hazard requiring specialised engineering solutions, particularly through the expansion of drainage infrastructure and flood defence systems. While these measures remain essential, they address only the symptoms of increasingly intense rainfall rather than the underlying landscape processes that determine how water moves through urban environments. A more comprehensive understanding of flood resilience begins with a single principle: absorptive capacity. The ability of soils, vegetation, wetlands, and catchments to absorb, store, and gradually release water influences not only flood risk but also drought resilience, urban cooling, ecosystem health, and wildfire susceptibility.
Healthy, vegetated landscapes function as natural hydrological systems. Rainfall that falls on permeable soils with well-developed root networks infiltrates the ground rather than immediately becoming surface runoff. Organic matter within the soil acts as a natural reservoir, retaining moisture that can later support vegetation during dry periods while reducing the volume and speed of water entering drainage systems during storms. This capacity to regulate water movement is progressively diminished as vegetation is removed and permeable surfaces are replaced by roads, buildings, and other impervious materials.
Urbanisation has significantly altered this natural balance. As cities expand, rainfall that would previously have infiltrated into the ground is increasingly converted into rapid surface runoff. Stormwater is therefore concentrated into drainage networks over much shorter periods, increasing the likelihood that even well-designed systems will exceed their capacity during intense rainfall. Flash flooding becomes not only more frequent but also more severe because the landscape itself has lost much of its ability to absorb and temporarily store water.
Nature-based infrastructure seeks to restore these lost hydrological functions. Expanding permeable green spaces, restoring wetlands and riparian corridors, increasing urban tree cover, and protecting upstream forests all contribute to slowing the movement of water through the landscape. Rather than attempting to remove floodwater as quickly as possible once runoff has formed, these interventions reduce the amount of runoff generated in the first place by increasing infiltration, temporary storage, and evapotranspiration. As a result, peak flows entering rivers and drainage systems are reduced, lowering the likelihood and severity of flooding during extreme rainfall events.
The hydrological benefits of these interventions also strengthen resilience to other climate hazards. Soils that retain more moisture during wet periods remain wetter during drought, reducing vegetation stress and lowering wildfire risk. Riparian vegetation supported by stable groundwater conditions is generally more resistant to prolonged dry periods than vegetation growing on degraded or channelised riverbanks. Similarly, increased soil moisture contributes to evaporative cooling, moderating urban temperatures during periods of extreme heat. Water management should therefore not be viewed solely through the lens of flood prevention but as a central mechanism linking multiple dimensions of climate resilience.
Recommendations
The past event is showing the need og strengthening urban resilience in the Western Balkans requires a shift from hazard-specific interventions towards integrated, nature-based adaptation strategies. To support this transition, municipalities and national governments should prioritise the following actions:
1. Urban forests, wetlands, permeable landscapes, and riparian corridors should be incorporated into infrastructure planning and investment alongside conventional grey infrastructure rather than being treated as optional environmental amenities.
2. Tree planting programmes should prioritise densely developed neighbourhoods with limited existing vegetation, high surface temperatures, and vulnerable populations. Species selection should consider future climatic conditions, drought tolerance, and resistance to increasingly severe wind events.
3. Flood resilience depends not only on urban drainage systems but also on the condition of upstream forests, wetlands, and river corridors. Catchment restoration should therefore become an integral component of municipal climate adaptation planning.
4. Climate adaptation strategies should evaluate infrastructure investments according to their ability to reduce multiple hazards simultaneously, including flooding, extreme heat, wind damage, drought, and wildfire, rather than addressing each risk independently.
5. The effectiveness of nature-based solutions depends on sustained maintenance, monitoring, and ecological management. Urban forestry programmes should therefore include regular tree inspections, appropriate pruning regimes, soil improvement, and replacement planning to maximise resilience under changing climatic conditions.
6. Municipal responses to severe weather should be supported by independent post-event assessments that evaluate infrastructure performance and identify opportunities for improvement. Such evaluations would strengthen public confidence while informing future resilience planning. Implementing these recommendations would enable municipalities to move beyond reactive disaster response towards a preventative model of climate adaptation in which ecological systems function as critical infrastructure. By reducing the severity of multiple hazards simultaneously, nature-based solutions offer a cost-effective and durable means of improving urban resilience in an increasingly volatile climate.
This content was developed by the Institute of Communication Studies.
Author: Kiril Arsovski Przho