‘The solution is to restore the coast to its natural state’
Costas Synolakis, a professor of natural disasters and maritime engineering at the University of Crete. Has there already been a rise in the sea level here in Greece? Unfortunately we do not have enough data. There are very few tidal recordings throughout Greece and we don’t have long-term measurements to see if there have been any changes. What is certain is that there are already problems with seafront hotels in Halkidiki and Crete. Particularly after heavy storms, because many beaches have eroded and the sea reaches the hotels, which have been built too close to the seafront. How much is the sea level expected to rise over the next few years? Optimistic forecasts say that in the next 100 years it will have risen by 1 meter. According to a recent United Nations report, the sea level is expected to rise by 70 centimeters within the next century. The impact will be noticeable in 40 years’ time. The global ocean system is fairly inactive, changes take time, but when they happen they are irreversible. Something that takes 100 years to change cannot simply revert to its previous state. Even this optimistic forecast will have far-reaching consequences. The sea will advance by 100 meters on most of the beaches where we swim and on which tourism depends. If you consider that the gradient of a beach is 1:100, if the sea level rises 1 meter, the sea will advance 100 meters. What impact will an increase in the sea Most storms are thermal. If the sea is warmer, then these storms have more energy. Freak weather phenomena like we have seen in Crete and Thessaloniki, formerly believed to occur every 40 to 50 years, will take place every year. Typhoons might not occur in Greece because of the country’s geographical features but if there is a violent storm the sea can advance inland by 500 meters. This would be catastrophic for Greece. Is this year’s warm winter the result of global warming? It is difficult to say. We have only just started to understand the greenhouse effect over the last 15 to 20 years; it isn’t something we have experience of. What is alarming is that the changes in the weather conditions are occurring earlier than we had expected. This is also the case with the rapid melting of the ice caps. If five years ago someone had warned that blocks of ice the size of Crete would become detached from the Antarctic in 2006 and 2007, nobody would have believed them. But it has happened. If a system loses its equilibrium it starts to fluctuate in an attempt to redress the balance. We are seeing the beginnings of the fluctuations and we cannot say how far they will go, but they have certainly begun. Has the Greek state realized the risk posed by global warming to the country and have any measures been taken against its effects? We are very much behind environmentally. There is no national environmental policy. We act spasmodically, with no plan or national policy for major issues. When freak weather occurs, such as floods, we just make quick repairs. We also depend on what the rest of Europe does, which is a shame as we could have taken the initiative on several issues. We have the most islands and we depend on tourism, yet we wait for Europe to make us protect them. We don’t even have any management of the coastal zone. A legislative framework exists, which is violated continuously, but no management. There is nobody to restore the beaches. From what you have told us, we will soon have to review our coastal construction policies since the seafront appears to be shifting. At some point the issue of defining the coastline precisely will arise. In a few years the sea will have encroached on houses, and where will the coastline be legally then? Where it was 20 years ago? At this moment in Crete and Thessaloniki the seashore has reached the hotels. It hasn’t yet been mapped for some islands. Apart from the environmental problem, serious property issues will also arise. But the Greek state is dragging its feet. Some hoteliers have taken the law into their own hands. In [the northwestern Cretan town of] Georgioupolis the beach was considerably eroded by the October storms. A month and a half later the hotel owners had brought bulldozers and taken sand from another part of the beach to dump in front of their hotels. This is not management, this is transferring the problem from one place to another. We cannot let private individuals, or municipalities and port authorities, provide piecemeal solutions. Breakwaters and land projections have been popular but these do not protect the coastline and are massive constructions. The solution is to restore the coast to its natural state. Sometimes the less you do, the better.
