GREECE

 

The proposed Greek research site is the island of Crete. The rapid development of Crete since 1980 has exerted strong pressures on many natural resources. Due to urbanization and the growth of agriculture and tourism industry, water demand has substantially increased by over 55% during the period 1985 - 2000. However, any arising water stress issue will be due to poor extraction or retention technology rather than actual availability.

 

The impact of climate change on the water resources status for the island of Crete has been assessed for a range of 24 different scenarios from a combination of projected hydro-climatological regimes, demand and supply potentials.

 

These scenarios were based on three Global Climate Models and an ensemble of Regional Climate Models under IPCC emission scenarios B1, A2 and A1B. Overall, a robust signal of water insufficiency is projected for all the combinations of emission, demand and infrastructure scenarios, with the estimated deficit ranging from 10% to 74%.