An olive grove in the village of Nea Silata, northern Greece, is watered from a container through an irrigation pipe. | Photo credit: AP
Six weeks before harvest, there is no water left in the ground in farmer Dimitris Papadakis’s olive orchard in northern Greece, so he has started a new morning routine.
Together with his teenage son, he brings water from nearby areas in a truck. Using a small generator, he connects the vehicle to an irrigation pipe to save his thirsty crops.
“Our borewells have almost dried up … we now depend on tankers to irrigate our fields,” says Mr Papadakis, head of an agricultural cooperative in a village in Halkidiki, a three-fingered peninsula in northern Greece that is popular with tourists.
This summer, southern Europe has been hit by frequent heat waves, which have come after three years of below-average rainfall. Drought spots have expanded on the region’s map. In Greece, the impacts include water shortages, dried-up lakes and even the death of wild horses. “We have seen a 30-40% reduction in water supplies after three consecutive winters with almost no rain,” said local mayor Anastasia Halkia.
The groundwater beneath Mr. Papadakis’s 270 olive trees is depleting and becoming saline, and drought threatens to halve his expected yield.
The water crisis is further aggravated by the increasing tourist season. In Kassandra, at the westernmost tip of the peninsula, the year-round population of 17,000 swells to 650,000 in summer, putting unbearable pressure on water resources.