Water scarcity is no longer a future threat for Greece; it’s a pressing reality worsening with each passing year. The nation, particularly its most populous regions, is confronting a critical shortage, driven by dwindling reserves and unsustainable practices.
For the Athens metropolitan area (Attica), home to approximately half of Greece’s population, solutions have been urgently sought since last autumn. The capital’s primary reservoirs—Mornos, Evinos, Marathonas, and Yliki—currently hold enough water for a maximum of two years, highlighting the precariousness of the situation. This grim scenario is mirrored across other regions of the country.
The picture becomes even more dramatic when considering the depleted “strategic” groundwater reserves. These underground sources are vital, as they are less susceptible to pollution and evaporation. The primary culprit in their rapid decline is the agricultural sector, which accounts for a staggering 85 percent of the country’s water withdrawal and relies heavily on groundwater.
Regions in Greece particularly affected by water scarcity
Data from the Hellenic Geological and Mining Research Authority (EGMR), responsible for monitoring Greece’s groundwater, reveals that some areas already face a practical absence of drinking water. The most vulnerable include:
- most of the Cyclades islands
- Eastern Argolis on the Peloponnese
- Moudania and Kassandra in Halkidiki
Vasilis Zorapas, a geologist and scientific manager of the EGMR’s Monitoring Network and head of the Hydrogeology and Hydrology Department, identifies rainfall, salinization, and anthropogenic pressures as the main factors impacting groundwater.
The current drought has severely impacted the southern and eastern parts of the country, specifically the Aegean islands, Crete, and the Eastern Peloponnese (from Corinth to Laconia). Furthermore, parts of Thessaly and Central Macedonia are battling perennial water adequacy issues, stemming not only from reduced rainfall but also from inadequate irrigation management.
EGMR monitoring consistently shows that areas under intense pressure are those with long-standing water adequacy problems, which are exacerbated during drought conditions. This underscores the critical need for proper water management.
A stark example is the groundwater system of Moira, Crete, where the water level has plummeted by over 25 meters (82 ft) since 2014. According to Zorapas, speaking to Ta Nea newspaper, this dramatic drop is due to both water scarcity and excessive over-pumping for irrigation, even during periods of adequate hydrological conditions. In other regions, such as the Argolic plain, the water table hasn’t dropped because lost freshwater has been replaced by invading seawater, rendering it brackish and unusable.
Water salinization occurs when over-pumping causes the freshwater level on land to recede, allowing the sea to intrude and replenish the depleted reserves. This phenomenon is prevalent in coastal lowlands such as Argolis, Corinth, Syros, Naxos, Chios, Ierapetra, Epanomi-Moudania, the Thriasio Plain, and the Evros Delta.
A one-meter (3.2 ft) drop in an underground aquifer’s level can equate to a loss of 150,000 to 250,000 cubic meters of water per square kilometer, depending on its characteristics. Athens, however, presents a unique case, primarily supplied by the Mornos and Evinos reservoirs. The reserves have significantly diminished due to insufficient supply within their catchment areas in recent years, with a notable absence of snowfall also playing a crucial role.
The interplay of climate, human activity, and geology
Overall water sufficiency in Greece is determined by three key factors:
- climatic conditions: temperature and variations in annual rainfall and snowfall
- anthropogenic pressures: human activities and consumption
- hydrogeological structure: the geological suitability of a region to host or store groundwater
“When these three factors or their combinations are unfavorable, then water scarcity phenomena are caused, as is the case today,” notes the EGMR geologist. While climatic conditions and human pressures are variable, geological formations vary in their ability to store water, ranging from almost zero to forty percent of rainfall. The replenishment of groundwater is, generally, a slow process.
Greece’s average annual rainfall varies significantly, from 1,300 millimeters in Epirus to a mere 400 millimeters in the Cyclades and Halkidiki. Climate change further compounds the issue, working against groundwater recharge. Simultaneously, rising temperatures extend the irrigation season and increase overall water use, placing additional stress on both groundwater and surface waters.
EGMR data for the 2020-2024 five-year period reveals a significant decrease in rainfall, particularly in the southern and eastern parts of the country. For instance, the Tripoli meteorological station has effectively lost almost a full hydrological year, with the annual average plummeting from 750 millimeters to 617 millimeters.
A strategy deficit
“The pressures on groundwater systems are most often due to incorrect or poor use, which leads to waste of the resource,” emphasizes Zorapas, speaking to Ta Nea newspaper. He highlights several critical systemic failures:
- network losses: Water transport networks suffer losses exceeding 50 percent.
- illegal use: Uncontrolled and illegal water abstractions are a major problem, exacerbated by a lack of oversight from licensing authorities.
- lack of strategy: The absence of a coherent national strategy for the tourism and agricultural sectors is profoundly critical.
The surge in tourist flows, improved living standards, and aging infrastructure leading to increased network losses have more than doubled Greece’s annual water consumption in the last 25 years, reaching 1.8 billion cubic meters from approximately 800 million in 2000.
Zorapas stresses the paramount importance of water conservation during drought periods, with irrigation, as the largest consumer, needing to “bear” the greatest burden.
He concludes with a stark assessment: “There are neither immediate nor easy solutions and there may not be solutions for all areas. In these cases, we should aim to mitigate the problem.” This mitigation necessitates crucial steps, including:
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- limiting visitor numbers and tourism infrastructure, involving the alignment of development with the capacity of underground and surface water systems;
- crop diversification and the consideration of changes to less water-intensive crops;
- and strict control and the implementation of stringent controls on all water abstractions, especially illegal ones.
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- Related: Greece Among Top 20 Countries at Risk of Water Scarcity, Reports Warn
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