Greece fights climate emergency with huge waterworks as Athens risks going thirsty

The Greek capital will run out of water in four years if droughts persist, but farmers around the country face a similar predicament

Mornos lake, in central Greece, is Athens’ main source of water. Its levels have dropped precipitously in two years of drought (All photographs ©John Psaropoulos unless otherwise indicated)

Last week, environment minister Theodoros Skylakakis said that if the droughts of the past two years were to persist, Athens would run out of water in another four years.

Since 2022, Skylakakis said, the water in a system of resevoirs serving the city has fallen by more than a third, from 1.1bn tonnes to 700mn tonnes.  Mornos lake, Athens’ main source of water, has dropped precipitously because a two- year drought has thinned the Mornos river that feeds it and deprived the surrounding mountainsides of snowfall that would have melted into it. The shellfish-encrusted walls of the village of Kallio, flooded 45 years ago, are now exposed, and the extremities of this four-fingered lake are receding.

The exposed sides of Mornos