Traditional farming practices, leaks and wastage are the largest drain on reserves
Over 1.1 billion people have restricted or no access to clean water, according to a UN report issued on the occasion of World Day for Water last month. By 2025, those without sufficient water availability are expected to reach 2.7 billion. Half of all the world’s hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from diseases related to water or the lack thereof. Experts say these diseases are treatable and the water supply solutions simple, but they are complicated by many factors, including poor infrastructure in many parts of the world, the pollution of underground reserves by industry, salination, and the greenhouse effect. In Greece, the largest user of water is agriculture, accounting for 87 percent of all reserves consumed. Intensive farming methods have resulted in the irrigation of crops that do not really require it, such as olive groves. The crops are not only less tasty as a result, but farmers find they have to drill deeper and deeper for water, with disastrous consequences for the water table. So even reducing household or industrial water consumption will not make all that much difference if something is not done about agricultural demands on water reserves. Water for irrigation will soon be more expensive, or rather its cost will be more representative of its real value. Giorgos Kallergis, hydrogeologist at the University of Patras’s School of Geology, told Kathimerini that consumption can be restricted by adopting appropriate irrigation techniques, such as drip irrigation. «In other countries there are filtering systems for collecting water from irrigation, purifying it and recycling it. We can irrigate with urban waste water once it has been processed,» he said. The first step is to ensure that water is not lost, either because the network is very old or because in many cases the water runs through open channels or makeshift ditches in the bare earth. According to Kallergis, there are huge losses from the irrigation system, which should be reconstructed to minimize the loss due to leakage or evaporation. Traditional farming practices are also a cause of water waste. «What point is there in irrigating olive groves, which should really be dry farming,» pointed out Kallergis. «When olive trees are watered they produce more olives. However, the European Union wants to reduce olive oil production. «At the moment the water is free and so farmers believe they are increasing their income without paying anything out. In Crete, in the prefecture of Iraklion, they have serious water shortages in summer, so what is the point of watering olives?» he asked. Kallergis also pointed out that water is not entirely free of charge for farmers. In Thessaly, one now has to drill down to 800 meters in places where even in the fairly recent past water could be found at 200 meters. Therefore the cost of the drilling rises. To draw water up from such depths requires fuel, which costs money, he added. The cost of water, which has not yet been precisely estimated, will soon become a major factor in the rationalization of its use. «The EU’s latest directive, which we will have to conform with, treats water as an environmental issue. Water for irrigation will not be free, nor will people be able to drill for water on their own land at will, but will have to assume the cost of recovering the water consumed,» he said.
