Rampant looting of the country’s water resources
Experts say Greece has enough water reserves, but they wonder if the reserves are sufficient in amount and quality. People’s behavior, not nature, should probably be blamed for the country’s dwindling water supplies and occasional shortages. The state also doesn’t seem able to protect water from inevitable pollution by over-drilling and waste. That’s because there’s no national policy on water reserves or any kind of strategic planning, despite the pleas of scientists. Panayiotis Karakatsouklis, professor emeritus of hydraulics at the Agricultural University in Athens, is a United Nations expert on the management of water resources and head of the UN’s Economic Commission for Europe Protocol on Water. He talked to Kathimerini about various aspects of the water issue. «Greece is not lacking in either surface or underground water, but what it does lack is a policy for managing and using it properly,» Karakatsouklis said in the interview.
