Seven Greek islands - Agathonissi, Amorgos, Thassos, Kassos, Serifos, Sifnos and Paxi - are to be the focus of a scientific study seeking solutions to address water shortages and meet future demand for water. The aim is to propose ecological hydrological solutions that will increase the collection of rainwater and the fresh water reserves of the islands involved. Some of the islands selected are areas where acute water shortage problems have been observed. For Serifos and Sifnos, in particular, the civil protection agency declared a state of emergency this summer due to this problem.
The General Secretary of the Aegean and Island Policy, Manolis Koutoulakis, said the general secretariat systematically invested in studies to address drought and optimal planning, but with projects specifically tailored to each island and its particular needs and characteristics. He said this focused not only on the supply side, with a greater number of more costly projects like desalination, but also on managing demand, improving storage and minimising losses that could be as high as 40 pct.
Talking to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency, Professor of Mountain Water Management Dimitris Emmanouloudis, who holds the UNESCO Chair on Management and Protection of Coastal and Deltaic Ecosystems, said that past studies in the first stage of the research project had shown that with technical interventions and projects, it was possible to fully meet not only present but also future demands for water in the summer months up to 2030, so that it was not necessary to tap into the underground water reserves of the islands, enabling their use by local residents in months when there is less tourism, while also offering visitors rainwater instead of desalinated water.
He said that this will lead to the proposal of small-scale technical projects and ecosystem-friendly solutions, specifically tailored to each island, so as to maximise collection of rainwater during the winter months, in order to restrict the use of desalinated water as much as possible.
Emmanouloudis reported that an "explosive cocktail" of low rainfall and snowfall during the previous winter, combined with high demand and sustained high temperatures had created acute problems of water shortage in many parts of the country. He also highlighted the role of tourism and the high number of visitors concentrated in the capital and the Greek islands, noting that above a certain limit, regardless of the infrastructure built, the conditions created would be unmanageable. He noted that the problems were clearly visible in the receding level of the country's lakes and reservoirs, which is some areas were reduced to about half their normal level.
He said the situation had to be addressed a series of measures that were immediate, short-term and medium-term. These range from adopting a new culture of water conservation on an individual basis, to better irrigation techniques, avoiding water use for recreational and aesthetic reasons, restricting loss of water from networks and storage tanks (currently high at 45-55%) and more accurate assessment of the water footprint of areas, especially those with high levels of tourism, so as to build the appropriate small-scale infrastructure.
