Tuesday, January 21, 2025
Going through the challenges of overtourism and ongoing drought, Greece is exploring modern methods to preserve water.
As droughts persist throughout the nation, Greece is searching for different strategies to keep up water ranges in lodge swimming pools.
This summer season, swimming pools within the famend vacationer hotspot is likely to be stuffed with seawater as lawmakers take into account new laws geared toward addressing the continuing water disaster.
The proposed laws outlines pointers for establishing pipelines to flow into seawater out and in of swimming swimming pools at coastal lodges, providing a sustainable answer to preserve freshwater assets for important city wants in areas experiencing water shortages.
Greece Explores Seawater Swimming pools to Fight Drought as Tourism Thrives
In a bid to sort out extreme drought and water shortages, Greece is contemplating a groundbreaking strategy: filling lodge swimming swimming pools with seawater. The proposal, presently beneath dialogue in parliament, goals to preserve precious freshwater assets for important city use.
Beneath the proposed laws, pipelines can be put in to pump seawater out and in of swimming pools at coastal resorts. Deputy Minister of Tourism Elena Rapti defined, “This framework outlines the extraction and pumping of seawater for swimming pools, with a primary focus on conserving water resources.”
Whereas modern, the thought has sparked environmental considerations. Critics fear in regards to the ecological affect, together with potential hurt to marine life attributable to chlorine and different chemical substances used to disinfect seawater swimming pools. The development of underwater pipelines might additionally disturb the seabed.
Nevertheless, with Greece grappling with a 12% lower in annual rainfall from 1971 to 2020 in comparison with earlier a long time, the urgency to deal with water shortage is rising. Extreme droughts over the previous two years have intensified the necessity for sustainable options, particularly in a nation the place tourism stays a key financial driver.
As Greece navigates these challenges, balancing environmental preservation with water conservation might be essential in shaping its response to a altering local weather.
Not everybody views the proposal as a step in the appropriate route.
Critics have raised considerations about potential environmental hurt, notably from chemical-treated seawater, equivalent to chlorine, being discharged again into the ocean, which poses a risk to marine life. Moreover, the set up of pipelines might disrupt and harm the fragile seafloor ecosystem.
Regardless of these considerations, the urgency to preserve water is simple, as Greece has been grappling with extreme drought circumstances over the previous two years.
A current examine by the Nationwide Observatory of Athens revealed that annual rainfall in Greece dropped by roughly 12% between 1971 and 2020 in comparison with the interval from 1901 to 1970.