As a prolonged heat wave scorched Greece in mid-June, with temperatures reaching over 104 degrees Fahrenheit, residents of Sifnos, a small island in the western Cyclades, faced a reality they had long anticipated and feared: Their taps ran dry.
After months of practically no rainfall and record-breaking heat, the island had to rely on desalination units to convert seawater to fresh water for its 2,600 residents and thousands of tourists. But when one of the four units broke down in June, the water supply could not meet the demand, leaving some homes and vacation rentals with dry taps for 10 days.
“It was a disaster,” recalled Roula Katselou, 50, a resident of Exambela, one of the largest villages on the island. “We could not shower, cook or clean. We had to carry buckets of water from our neighbors who had cisterns and buy bottled water to wash the children.”
Nikos Galatas, 37, was renting out his parents’ vacation home to an Italian couple when the water was cut, and after reserves in his water tank ran out, the couple moved to another part of the island.
“I lost a lot of money because they had booked the house for 12 days,” Mr. Galatas said. “And it was very stressful to find a suitable alternative when so many of the accommodations were booked up.”
Even after the malfunctioning desalination unit was fixed, water cuts persisted as visitor numbers soared, reaching nearly 40,000 arrivals in August alone.
Water scarcity is becoming the next battleground in overtourism, as residents in places like Barcelona, Spain; Casablanca, Morocco; Mexico City; and Sicily, grapple with the impacts of climate change and compete with tourists to get their share of the dwindling supply. Fearful of deterring visitors, governments dependent on tourism dollars are reluctant to impose restrictions on hotels and restaurants. In Sicily, for example, the local authorities have admitted to prioritizing water supply to hotels, and earlier this year in Barcelona, only residents, not tourists, faced water restrictions.
Now Greece is facing the same dilemma as authorities scramble to enact measures to prevent future disruptions.
‘We have reached our limit’
The situation is particularly alarming on the Greek islands, many of which do not have the infrastructure to absorb tens of thousands of tourists. This year, Greece is on track to receive 35 million visitors, a 7 percent increase from 2023, according to the National Bank of Greece. Some islands are feeling the crush. From June and August this year, Sifnos, for example, received more than 100,000 tourists, up from 67,000 in 2014.
Sifnos, along with islands like Crete, Kefalonia, Leros and Serifos, declared a state of emergency this summer after wells and reservoirs dried up, leaving residents dependent on desalination units, which are expensive to obtain and run. Some residents of Sifnos became so concerned that they hoarded water from the municipal network by filling up cisterns designed to collect rain.
“We have reached our limit,” said Manolis Foutoulakis, the deputy mayor in charge of water supply in Sifnos. “During the tourism peak in August, I was watching the water levels go down and down and signing the cross, praying that we would get by.”
Mr. Foutoulakis said the island would not have enough water if there is another drought next summer and tourist numbers surge. He has requested another desalination unit from the government, but it could take up to two years to receive it.
“We welcome tourists, but if we have no water, we will have no choice but to send them away,” Mr. Foutoulakis said.
New measures
In Greece, where tourism accounts for about a fifth of the country’s economy, discontent is building on oversaturated islands like Santorini and Mykonos, with protests calling for curbs on tourism, particularly cruise ships, which disgorge hundreds, often thousands, of visitors at once.
This month, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of Greece announced new measures to tackle overtourism, including a 20 euro (about $22) tax for cruise ship passengers visiting Santorini and Mykonos in the summer, and an increase to a new “climate resilience fee” to rebuild infrastructure damaged by climate change. The government is expected to announce further restrictions to cap the number of cruise ship arrivals in those destinations.
But overcrowding is only a part of the problem, local officials say. One of the biggest challenges the islands have faced since the pandemic is the development of hotels and vacation villas, which strain water supplies with their gardens and swimming pools. Maria Nadali, the mayor of Sifnos, said many properties overconsume water, but in the absence of a centralized water management plan, the island was tackling the issue alone and did not have the resources to regulate consumption.
“The new constructions are required to have water tanks,” Ms. Nadali said, but “some of them put a door and window on the tanks and make them into tourist rooms to rent.” She added, “It is a big problem because the municipality then has to supply water to these properties outside of the residential zones.”
Elissavet Feloni, an adjunct lecturer at the department of Surveying and Geoinformatics Engineering at the University of West Attica, in Aigaleo, Greece, said many new hotels have expansive lawns and gardens that are not suitable for dry islands. “We should promote gray water recycling to reuse water for irrigation and generally nonpotable purposes,” she said.
Lots of heat, little rain: ‘An explosive cocktail’
The summer of 2024 was the hottest in Greece’s recorded history, according to the National Observatory of Athens. This year, after a warm winter with limited precipitation, temperatures started to soar as early as March.
“The amount of water that one consumes is highly dependent on the temperature in the country,” said Dimitrios Emmanouloudis, the UNESCO chair on conservation and ecotourism of riparian and deltaic ecosystems. “You need less water when it’s 82 degrees than when it’s 104. Then add the increase in demand brought by tourists. It’s an explosive cocktail that brought the situation to a head.”
Beyond the islands, the reservoirs that supply water to Athens have been hit hard by climate change, with Lake Mornos, the largest reservoir, at its lowest level in 16 years, exposing the ruins of the village of Kallio, which was submerged in 1980. The capital’s water reserves are currently at 656,653 million cubic meters, down from 1.1 billion cubic meters in September 2022, according to the Athens Water Supply and Sewerage Company.
Dry conditions and high winds also created perfect conditions for wildfires, with numerous blazes across the country — including one that reached the suburbs of Athens — adding further pressure on the water supply.
In late June, on the small island of Serifos, which is adjacent to Sifnos, a large wildfire destroyed houses and severely damaged the water infrastructure. “We consumed a significant amount of water in order to put out the fire,” said Konstantinos Revinthis, the mayor of Serifos, who declared a state of emergency for four consecutive months because of the water shortages. The island is conducting research on replacing its water infrastructure, which, Mr. Revinthis said, is antiquated.
Preparing for prolonged shortages, the Greek government announced measures last week to tackle the issue, including drilling for groundwater, desalination and repairing water networks. Theodoros Skylakakis, the environment and energy minister, warned that limits to consumption may be introduced, but until then, regardless of availability, people should use water sparingly.
A matter of greed?
While island governments printed pamphlets and urged hotels and other accommodations to brief tourists about water consumption — encouraging them to take quick showers and use bowls of water for washing up instead of letting the water run — many visitors remained unaware of the issue.
Tristan Keller, 43, a lawyer from Miami who was recently on vacation with his girlfriend on Serifos, said the water pressure in their Airbnb had been low, but they didn’t realize there was a shortage. “It’s amazing that a place surrounded by so much water doesn’t have enough,” he said.
When the desalination unit on Sifnos broke down in June, Yorgos Vassalos, 63, the owner of a local market, recalled how tourists who came to buy bottled water were shocked that there was no solution to the water cuts.
“Even when the water came back, it was on and off and it was brown and reddish in color, which concerned the tourists,” Mr. Vassalos said. “They bought big bottles of water so that they could wash themselves.”
Flora Manou, an islander, warned that Sifnos was taking in more tourists than it could handle and putting pressure on natural resources.
“Tourists are very welcome, but some people are becoming greedy, turning every part of the island into a hotel,” she said. “If it continues at this rate, then we, too, will be banging our heads against the wall like Mykonos or Santorini.”
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