The noise is deafening us, report: Above the limit day and night across the country, Korça ranked in…

Albania is a cacophony that finds no peace, neither by day nor by night. Daily life is defined by car horns, roaring exhausts, sudden braking and revving engines, whistles and shouts, construction sites, and much more of the sort.

Traffic is the main source of noise, but not the only one. The National Environmental Agency’s report states that in every city where noise levels were measured, they turned out to be higher than the legal limits.

Lushnja is the only city that remains within limits both during the day and night, while Kukës and Përmet stay within limits only at night.

“Noise monitoring was carried out in the cities of Tirana, Shkodra, Vlora, Lezha, Kukës, Korça, Pogradec, Berat, Saranda, Gjirokastra, Fier, Përmet, \[and] Lushnja.”

Based on monitoring data from 2024, noise levels exceeded the legal daytime limit (55 dB) in all monitored cities except Lushnja.

For the nighttime period (45 dB), noise levels in Kukës, Përmet, and Lushnja remained within the limits, while in the other monitored cities they exceeded them.

The main source of noise emissions is road traffic. “Additionally, bars and cafés generate noise both during the day and at night,” the report states.

According to the document, based on daytime monitoring, the highest noise levels were recorded in Tirana, with an exceedance of 15.1% above the limit, followed by Vlora (14.7%), Saranda (13.6%), and Gjirokastra (11.1%).

The lowest levels were monitored in Kukës, Pogradec, Përmet, and Lushnja.

Since road traffic is a random phenomenon, the impact of traffic or any other external factor causing noise at the time of monitoring may explain the increase or decrease of urban noise levels in the monitored cities.

As for nighttime monitoring, the highest levels were recorded in Vlora, with an exceedance of 18.75% above the limit, followed by Tirana (16.51%) and Saranda (14.6%), while the lowest were recorded in Kukës, Pogradec, Përmet, and Lushnja.

“KORÇA BOOM”