Drought and the influx of tourists have led to severe water shortages on the Greek island of Naxos. Most locals work in agriculture. While the island uses desalination plants to provide water for the tourists, farmers cannot rely on this solution. Without water, some fear the farming sector could die off.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00From April to October, the Greek island of Naxos is packed with tourists, but while these
00:08visitors bring good money to the island, the locals are struggling with severe water shortages.
00:15Just a few kilometres from the harbour, farmer Stelios Vathrokokilis' well has run dry.
00:20I have prepared a plot of land next to the harbour to cultivate potatoes in a week,
00:26which is the season of spring planting, and as you can see I can't do anything because there is no water.
00:34I don't even have a drop of water to plant.
00:39The current situation is extreme and very dramatic, and the sad part of the whole situation is that
00:45the primary sector is disappearing.
00:50Most visitors are not aware of the urgency of the situation.
00:54Hotels and tourist facilities have an ample supply of water, which is supplied by desalination
00:59plants on the coast.
01:00But this solution is of no help to the farmers, because Naxos doesn't have the infrastructure
01:05to transport the treated water to the farms inland.
01:09There is no water.
01:12The food and the products are disappearing.
01:16If a product is a potato, it will be lost, because if you buy it now, it won't be a potato anymore.
01:22The island's farmers used to produce an average 6,000 tonnes of its famous Naxos potato every year.
01:28This spring, less than a third of that was harvested.
01:32Current supplies are expected to last until early October.
01:35While most Greek islands depend largely on tourism for income, most people here work in agriculture.
01:41Water reserves in the Phanaromeni Reservoir have almost been used up.
01:45There has been no rainfall for nearly nine months.
01:48During the holiday season, the town of Naxos needs up to 10,000 cubic metres of water a day,
01:54about 40% of which comes from the desalination plants.
01:57If it doesn't rain, what can the desalination plants do?
02:00They just have to make a plan, so that if there are any damage,
02:04because they are energy-intensive, they generate a lot of electricity.
02:08Four desalination plants can filter 3,600 cubic metres of water a day.
02:13Without them, the water reserves would almost certainly have been used up.
02:17The desalination plants are facing a lot of problems.
02:20Not only can they not water their crops,
02:23because they have separated the surface water from the wells, where most of it has dried up,
02:28but also because they can no longer transport water.
02:31We have to force people to transport water every day for six months.
02:35The water infrastructure on Naxos is either old or non-existent.
02:39Residents have been asked to use water sparingly.
02:42They had less water, not only in Naxos, but in the entire Mediterranean,
02:46as a result of which we have to pay a high price for the payment of these systems.
02:51We have paid for four months.
02:54We have the possibility to stay for another two to six months
02:58in order to cover the summer.
03:00If we are unable, because there are no water transportation networks,
03:06we cannot transport the water from one settlement to another.
03:13The mayor of Naxos says that long-term solutions for the farming sector
03:16would be the construction of a second reservoir and the recycling of water.
03:21But for now, all the island's farmers can do is hope that rain will come soon.