After Multiple Winters W. Nearly No Rain, Farmers In Northern Greece Irrigating Crops With Tanker Trucks

Six weeks before harvest, there’s no water left in the ground for farmer Dimitris Papadakis’ olive grove in northern Greece, so he has started a new morning routine. Joined by his teenage son, he uses a truck to bring water from nearby areas. Using a small generator, he connects the vehicle to irrigation pipes to save what’s left of his thirsty crop. “Our boreholes have almost dried up ... We now depend on tankers to irrigate our fields,” says Papadakis, who heads an agricultural cooperative in a village in Halkidiki, a three-fingered peninsula in northern Greece which is popular with tourists.

This summer, southern Europe has been hammered by successive heat waves, following on from below-average rainfall for up to three years. Drought spots on the map of the region have expanded. In Greece, the effects include water shortages, dried-up lakes, and even the death of wild horses. The groundwater beneath Papadakis’ 270 olive trees is dwindling and becoming brackish, with the drought expected to cut his expected yield in half.

The water crisis has been exacerbated by a booming tourist season. In Kassandra, the westernmost finger of the peninsula, the year-round population of 17,000 swells to 650,000 in the summer, placing unsustainable pressure on water resources. “We’ve seen a 30-40% reduction in water supply following three consecutive winters with almost no rainfall,” says local mayor Anastasia Halkia.

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Along the Evros River, which divides Greece and Turkey, severe drought means the delta now has higher levels of seawater. The extra salt is killing the wild horses that depend on the river for drinking water. “If the horses go without water for a week, they die,” says Nikos Mousounakis, who is leading an initiative to create freshwater drinking points for the horses. “Some of them are still in bad shape, but we hope that with continued help, they’ll recover.” Until recently, Lake Picrolimni in northern Greece was a popular destination for mud baths, but this summer it’s a shallow basin of cracked earth, dry enough to hold the weight of a car. “It hasn’t rained for two years now, so the lake has totally dried up,” says local municipal chairman Costas Partsis. “It used to have a lot of water. People came and bathed in the muddy water. The clay has therapeutic properties for many ailments. No one came this year.”

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https://apnews.com/article/greece-drought-water-crops-climate-change-agriculture-b32a2e75a8403f6dcabac5c81e84a5df