Climate change to ruin Greek coastline

Two university professors who have studied global warming say many of the country’s beaches will be submerged in just a few decades

By Manina Danou and Alexandra Mandrakou - Kathimerini

To get a sense of how massively climate change will affect Greece, consider these very likely scenarios:

Coastlines filled with houses and hotels will be submerged by the sea in a few decades. In the Thermaic Gulf at Thessaloniki, the national road will be covered by water by the middle of this century. So, too, will many popular Greek beaches that attract thousands of Greek and foreign holidaymakers.

«Greeks go to great lengths to acquire a holiday home by the sea for their children, but it is likely that this house will be swept away by the waves in a few years. This is the result of human activity,» said Efstratios Doukakis, an associate professor in maritime geodetics at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA)

Doukakis, together with Costas Synolakis, a professor of natural disasters and maritime engineering at the University of Crete, have raised the alarm. They say beaches will disappear, more frequent and more violent storms will occur, seawater will seep into aquifers, the coastline will recede by as much as 100 meters and properties will end up in the sea.

And yet as evidence mounts that global warming will wreak havoc on the country, the state has not taken any measures.

«We have the largest number of islands, the longest coastline in Europe and no national environmental policy to protect it,» said Synolakis.