00:00From April to October, the Greek island of Naxos is packed with tourists, but while these
00:08visitors bring good money to the island, the locals are struggling with severe water shortages.
00:15Just a few kilometres from the harbour, farmer Stelios Vathrokokilis' well has run dry.
00:20I have prepared a plot of land next to the harbour to cultivate potatoes in a week,
00:26which is the season of spring planting, and as you can see I can't do anything because there is no water.
00:34I don't even have a drop of water to plant.
00:39The current situation is extreme and very dramatic, and the sad part of the whole situation is that
00:45the primary sector is disappearing.
00:50Most visitors are not aware of the urgency of the situation.
00:54Hotels and tourist facilities have an ample supply of water, which is supplied by desalination
00:59plants on the coast.
01:00But this solution is of no help to the farmers, because Naxos doesn't have the infrastructure
01:05to transport the treated water to the farms inland.
01:09There is no water.
01:12The food and the products are disappearing.
01:16If a product is a potato, it will be lost, because if you buy it now, it won't be a potato anymore.
01:22The island's farmers used to produce an average 6,000 tonnes of its famous Naxos potato every year.
01:28This spring, less than a third of that was harvested.
01:32Current supplies are expected to last until early October.
01:35While most Greek islands depend largely on tourism for income, most people here work in agriculture.
01:41Water reserves in the Phanaromeni Reservoir have almost been used up.
01:45There has been no rainfall for nearly nine months.
01:48During the holiday season, the town of Naxos needs up to 10,000 cubic metres of water a day,
01:54about 40% of which comes from the desalination plants.
01:57If it doesn't rain, what can the desalination plants do?
02:00They just have to make a plan, so that if there are any damage,
02:04because they are energy-intensive, they generate a lot of electricity.
02:08Four desalination plants can filter 3,600 cubic metres of water a day.
02:13Without them, the water reserves would almost certainly have been used up.
02:17The desalination plants are facing a lot of problems.
02:20Not only can they not water their crops,
02:23because they have separated the surface water from the wells, where most of it has dried up,
02:28but also because they can no longer transport water.
02:31We have to force people to transport water every day for six months.
02:35The water infrastructure on Naxos is either old or non-existent.
02:39Residents have been asked to use water sparingly.
02:42They had less water, not only in Naxos, but in the entire Mediterranean,
02:46as a result of which we have to pay a high price for the payment of these systems.
02:51We have paid for four months.
02:54We have the possibility to stay for another two to six months
02:58in order to cover the summer.
03:00If we are unable, because there are no water transportation networks,
03:06we cannot transport the water from one settlement to another.
03:13The mayor of Naxos says that long-term solutions for the farming sector
03:16would be the construction of a second reservoir and the recycling of water.
03:21But for now, all the island's farmers can do is hope that rain will come soon.
Comments