PLANNING WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT IN SMALL ISLANDS. TYPICAL CASES FROM SOUTH AEGEAN, GREECE

摘要

Sustainable water resources management in small islands can be a very challenging task. Such is the case of the Greek islands, dotting the southern part of the Aegean Archipelago, one of the driest areas of Europe. Rather low precipitation and high evapotranspiration are combined with small size and high seasonal population variation, due to tourism, which increases the water demand during the drier part of the year. This adverse situation has often led to overexploitation of the local water resources. Salinization of coastal aquifers, or drying up of fresh water springs are not uncommon. At the planning level, efficient water resources management is further complicated by insufficient field data. While this outline suggests a uniform treatment of the problem for all islands, one should keep in mind that each of them has its own particular features, which may lead to different optimal solutions. An example is offered in this paper, which deals with water resources management of three adjacent islands, namely Kalymnos, Kos and Nissyros, stressing both similarities and differences among them.