Hotelupwell.com – The largest reservoir on the Greek island of Naxos has dried up and is now only useful for sea turtles exploring its shallow, muddy waters. Downstream, sea air has seeped into empty irrigation wells, destroying the island’s valuable potato crop.
Further south, on the island of Karpathos, authorities have taken action to refill swimming pools. Meanwhile on the northern island of Thasos, local officials are looking for a desalination unit to make seawater drinkable.
Most of Greece has seen little or no rain in recent months. Now, as the country’s islands prepare to receive large numbers of summer tourists, the pressure on air supplies is becoming more severe, officials, farmers and scientists say.
“The entire Mediterranean region is experiencing severe rainfall shortages, especially on Naxos, our surface reservoirs are empty,” the island’s mayor, Dimitris Lianos, said recently.
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Millions of tourists visit Greece every year to enjoy its ancient sites, pristine beaches and turquoise waters.
But the impacts of climate change, including higher temperatures, less rainfall and forest fires threaten the future of the country’s largest economic driver.
This year feels full of challenges. After experiencing the warmest winter on record, forest fires are burning early, some of them in areas that are usually cold. At least six tourists, including famous British television presenter Michael Mosley, died last month as a heatwave hit the country.
Climate experts fear the worst is yet to come. Andrea Toreti, European and Global Drought Monitoring Coordinator at Copernicus Emergency Management Services, said once the impacts of the drought start to become apparent, it will be too late to take action.
“We need to avoid thinking in terms of emergencies, [instead] thinking about prevention and preparedness,” Toreti said.
The harvest is reduced
Air shortages are particularly acute on Naxos, a mountainous island of 20,000 people in one of the most popular and driest parts of the Aegean Sea. Tens of thousands of tourists flock to its beaches every day during the summer.
The island’s two reservoirs hold 220,000 cubic meters (7.7 million cubic feet) of usable air. That is the entire amount of water last year and is equivalent to several dozen Olympic swimming pools.
Authorities have secured three portable desalination units that will treat seawater to make it safe to drink. According to Mayor Lianos, the units must cover existing deficiencies in houses, hotels and swimming pools.
But farmers will not receive treated water and will have to rely on wells that have been contaminated by seawater through the aquifer. Farmers say the contamination occurs when wells are empty enough for salt water to enter.
Stelios Vathrakooilis grows the famous Naxos potatoes, which are loved in Greece for their buttery taste and are protected from imitation under European Union regulations. His harvest will be reduced by more than half this year because of salty irrigation water, he said.
“This is a big disappointment because we as humans did not succeed in anticipating that climate change will also have an impact on our lives,” he said as a handful of workers were harvesting large quantities of potatoes.
Desalination options
Countries in the Mediterranean, including Spain and Italy, are looking for ways to shore up their air supplies using desalination. But suppliers say those units are in short supply this summer due to surging demand.
Even in Thasos, which is much greener than the rugged Naxos region, officials say they want to buy a unit (desalinator) for future use.
Greece-based manufacturer Sychem was unable to fully meet customer demand this summer due to a shortage of key components and longer assembly times, Chief Executive Alexandros Yfantis said. New units will be available after September.