Athens has just one year of water left if winter brings no rain – Drought research raises alarm

Just a fewer years ago, h2o successful Athens seemed inexhaustible. Reservoirs were truthful afloat that the superior enjoyed abundant, uninterrupted supply.

In 2019, reserves could screen 4 consecutive years, reaching astir 1.2 cardinal cubic meters.

Today, the representation is starkly different: Athens has capable h2o for lone one year. If this winter’s rainfall and snowfall are poor, by 2027 the metropolis could look a genuine h2o proviso crisis.

This is not a distant script but a nonstop effect of clime change, prolonged drought, and rising depletion – which has climbed steadily by 6% since 2023 arsenic households person relaxed their conservation habits and discarded h2o much freely.

The looming h2o situation risks exploding conscionable arsenic Greece heads into its adjacent predetermination cycle, adding governmental unit to an already method and biology challenge.

Despite the urgency, Greece’s nationalist drought and h2o absorption program remains incomplete. Instead of providing clarity, authorities announcements implicit the summertime lone created much uncertainty.

Meanwhile, the “water business” is attracting beardown involvement from large home vigor and operation groups, arsenic good arsenic European multinationals eyeing billion-euro opportunities successful h2o infrastructure. Behind the scenes, however, battles are raging implicit who volition yet power Greece’s h2o resources.

Emptying Reservoirs

On September 26, 2025, EYDAP (Athens Water Supply and Sewerage Company) reported reserves of conscionable 408.4 cardinal cubic meters crossed its 3 reservoirs – down from 644.7 cardinal a twelvemonth earlier, a shortfall of 236 cardinal cubic meters.

The worst twelvemonth successful Athens’ h2o proviso past was 1993, erstwhile reserves plunged to 122 cardinal cubic meters, forcing the authorities to enforce drastic restrictions and fines.

“We haven’t reached the constituent wherever taps are moving dry,” said EYDAP’s General Water Director Giorgos Karagiannis. “But if reserves support falling, shortages are inevitable. Every year, Athens needs 450–500 cardinal cubic meters conscionable to get by.”

To compensate, EYDAP has had to bring backmost backup sources similar Lake Yliki and the Mavrosouvala wells, which present proviso astir 40% of the city’s water.

Emergency Measures and Long-Term Projects

EYDAP is reviving long-abandoned infrastructure portion pushing guardant the lone imperishable solution: transferring h2o from Lake Kremasta into the Evinos reservoir via 2 large tunnels. The archetypal signifier unsocial is estimated to outgo €450 cardinal and instrumentality 3–4 years, though experts pass adjacent that timeline whitethorn beryllium overly optimistic.

Until then, Athens indispensable trust connected impermanent measures: pumping from Boeotia’s Kifisos River basin, reactivating aged pumping stations, and launching caller boreholes. Farmers, however, are already protesting implicit the diversion of section h2o resources.

Another enactment connected the array is desalination. A survey is exploring sites for a works susceptible of producing 150,000–200,000 cubic meters daily, with Thisvi successful Boeotia emerging arsenic the astir apt determination owed to its proximity to the Mornos aqueduct.

But desalination has precocious fiscal and biology costs. Producing h2o this mode could astir treble user prices from €0.60 to implicit €1.10 per cubic meter.

A Race Against Time

Ultimately, the top situation is time. Experts hold nary large-scale task tin beryllium completed successful nether 2.5–3 years. That means Athens could look a captious shortfall earlier immoderate caller infrastructure comes online.

For galore successful the method community, diverting h2o from Lake Kremasta is the lone enactment that tin present meaningful results wrong the situation timeframe.

The connection is clear: Athens is not yet thirsty, but without decisive action, it soon volition be. EYDAP is scrambling connected aggregate fronts – from boreholes to desalination – to guarantee the capital’s solid remains full.

Water is not infinite. It demands infrastructure, planning, nationalist consciousness – and, astir of all, time. And time, arsenic the information show, is moving out.