The village that came back to life
Kallio, a village drowned by the Mornos reservoir 45 years ago, has resurfaced. Drought is only part of the story: farms, tourism and leaking pipes are draining Greece's water too.
If you live in Athens, you've likely seen the photos of Kallio.
And if not (🪨), now you have… because there's one right here…
The context: for 45 years, this village was submerged under the Mornos reservoir, Athens' primary water battery. Last year, the ruins re-emerged.
Why? Record-low snowfall and a relentless drought gutted Mornos, leaving it at ~25% capacity, enough to supply Athens for the next 12–16 months.
This story is the same across the country, from Evros in the north to Crete in the south.
But climate change is not the only protagonist. For example:
Thirsty farms
85% of Greece's water is used for agriculture, the highest in Europe (Spain ~65%; Italy ~55%)
1st in Europe for water consumption per hectare (likely top 3 in the developed world), driven in part by old irrigation systems
Produces >80% of Europe's cotton, one of the world's thirstiest crops. For perspective, Thessaly (where ~40% of Greece's cotton is farmed) consumes the same amount of water as Israel!
>300,000 boreholes, many illegal, pumping cheap groundwater with largely zero monitoring
Thirsty tourists
Island populations (e.g. Mykonos/Santorini) spike 3–7x in the summer
Some (e.g. Crete) have backup desalination when surface water runs dry
Others rely on water ships, which cost the state €10–12/m³ (~5x more than local desalination), or on fragile groundwater reserves
Leaky pipes
Greece loses ~50% of its water through aging/leaky pipes… before it reaches the tap (vs. EU avg ~23%)
So, while we can't control the rain, there are some things we can and should control better to ensure our future security.
In the next weeks, we'll look at solutions: the tech, the policy shifts, and the innovations that could turn this tide.
