The Impact of Climate Change on Greece’s Water Resources and Wastewater Management
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Introduction
Greece is a country, which is situated in the most southern part of the famous “Balkan Peninsula”. The Mediterranean Sea, the Ionian and the Aegean Seas border this country. The country is distributed in a total area of131,940 km2, according to the 2011 official census population of the country is approximately 11 million. Greece consists of 3000 islands, and has a large coastline of almost 18000 km., the country is 80% mountains and the highest peak of Greece is 2919 m high, situated in Olympus (Prochaska, and Zouboulis, 2020).
Greece comes under the classic Mediterranean climate, which is mild, hot and dry summers and wet winters. Regarding to the geographical balance of the country, a little range of local variations and microclimates can be noticed. The rainfall of the country ranges near from “300 to 500 mm” in the southern areas of Greece and that too from 900 to 1300 mm in the most northwestern section of the coreland. But sometimes it exceeded 2000 millimeters in mountainous areas (Bintliff, 2019). There is approximately a decrease of 18% in precipitation in the midway of this century and 22% by the end phase of this century. After looking at the expected modest decline in the population, per capita resources of water in the Greece are also going to be declined by the mid-century. The perspectives, in this case, there is a necessity to implicate the appropriate changes in the management of water resources along with the changes of the respective areas of the wastewater management, which may practiced commonly.
The most coldest months in the Greece are January and the February respectively with a mild temperature range between 5° to 10°C in the furthest coastal places and 0°C to 5°C in the mainland areas (Wateractionhub.org.,2023). The warm season lasts up to September from April, July and August are considered the warmest months in Greece with a maximum temperature of 29° to 35° C.
Background Information
Water Resources
Climate change has come with a great impact on the environmental social and economical bodies of grease. Freshwater issues are related to the quantity of water than the quality in Greece. The country has an unclear special seasonal and annual rainfall distribution. This results in small catchment areas relatively small lakes and salt rivers. The rivers are not evenly distributed throughout the country. In addition, increases catchments were marked by high difference specials in the climate morphology, petro graphic, vegetative and hydrographic features. The country should emphasise the groundwater that flows comes in the first category which can be utilized by the companies the government move easily so that it has already been exploited intensively (Wateractionhub.org.,2023).
Past of Wastewater treatment in Greece
Development in the last 40 years
Greece is a member of the EU and as a part of the organization Greece has the authority to comply with their policies on wastewater treatment. In the time of the development of WWTPs in urban areas followed the development of relevant directives. The increase started in the wastewater treatment operation at the beginning of the 1990s.
In 1992, the "Thessaloniki wastewater treatment plant" was started to fully operate. This plant is situated in the South around 7 kilometers from the city. Nowadays this plant is serving approximately 1,000,000 households in the metropolitan area. However, in 1993, the effluent use of wastewater in irrigation was first started. Roundabout 2225 m3/year of efficiency in WWTP is regularly reused after it is mixed with the freshwater from the river Axius with a ratio of 1:5 to the irrigation. In 1994, Psyttalia was the first water treatment plant begins to operate (Siatou et al. 2020). This plant is situated on the island of Psyttalia, in the Saronic Gulf serves in the island areas for approximately 3 million of the population.
Figure 1: Growth of Wastewater treatment plant in Greece from 1980 to 2015
The “agglomeration” was described as the area where the economic activities of the population are concerned with the wastewater and how it can be properly collected and conducted at a wastewater treatment plant. The right construction of a network of sewage is not legally accompanied by agglomeration that is not more than 2000 P.E. of the aforesiad wastewater has now been discharged into the water bodies. The initial WSP was developed in 1982 in "Sitochori" village in northern Greece, which serves a proper community of around 1000 P.E. However, the operation of other alternative technologies for wastewater treatment in small communities has not been widely accepted as a global alternative to the conventional wastewater systems in Greece. From the 147 “WWTPs” of smaller communities in 2000, more than 110 of them were saved by the extended aeration systems.
Recent Developments and Current Situation
The major management models for the water supply and the wastewater service in the Greece have mainly delegated the public management come on recently some of the public and the private management has been started for being implemented. To make cities in Greece the state delegated to major companies they are, E.Y.A.T.H for Thessaloniki and E.YD.A.P for Athens. All these organizations had been listed in the stock market of Greek for nearly 15 years and they are the main shareholders showing that the spokesperson of the board and see the government of Greece appointed you of the companies (Pantelaki and Voutsa, 2022). Cities composed of 10,000 inhabitants the institution of the municipal water and that the law regulating the mentioned role and the sewage companies were developed in the 1980s currently more than 130 municipality-governed organizations that are called as D.E.Y.A were running in the cities.
Figure 2: Map view of the WWTPs in Greece incurrent situation
In 2012, the national database was created by the selected secretariat for the Water of Greece for Environment and Energy. This database upgraded and enriched since then. Advanced geographical information systems were easily accessed by everyone, which is accessed via the respective web page what is up times of each Waste water plant where and easily accessible by public figures.
Municipal Wastewater Treatment in Greece
Wastewater treatment plant covers are counted as one of the big greenhouse gas sources in the water industry. A WWTPS cause the emission of GHG was is usually classified as offside and onside depending on the point of emission. According to the collected data from secondary studies, there are more than 200 municipal water treatment plants operated and after 2016 those are serving almost 9,800,000 people which is about 91% of the total population according to the census in 2011. Most of the people or 50% of them were mainly constructed between 2000 and 2010 while 17 quarter of treatment plants were developed in the last seven years. As per the capacity, 16 WWTP saved the cities more than 100,000 PE. There are mostly 152 WTPS for cities with 1,000 to 100,000 people and 52 WWTP make smaller settlements in places with not more than 10,000 people (Zeri et al. 2021).
Regional coverage regarding wastewater and sanitation
Greece is mainly divided into 13 regions. A valuable benefit from wastewater treatment is related to the prosperity of the area that has been served. In cases where regions have a PE TTP of more than 100%, this is due to the increased tourist rate and the MTPD design for the future. GNP is not soft and indeed, it is not optimum for the macroeconomic parameters, which made a comparison between the regions, has sufficient and descriptive for the treatment solution. Tourism is one of the major sources of graces income (Koutsou, Gatidou, and Stasinakis, 2018). The government has its own interests to maintain a clear environment in the tourist areas in these tourism areas whether it is rural or urban the government maintained wastewater treatment and scientism with a very high balance.
Future of Waste Water Treatment in Greece
The “wastewater management” in the Greece controlled and formulated by the “Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive”. Multiple WWTPs have been constructed in the previous 30 years, the recent challenges depend on the several operations of the performances with the necessity to fulfill the objections that are the key directive with the proper projects that were aigned to the areas with PE less than 10,000
There are several projects taken by the government to meet the requirements of people in the future with wastewater treatment plants. Integrated wastewater system management is one of the greatest challenges for Environmental Protection (Koutsou, Gatidou, and Stasinakis, 2018). It is not only through the bigger projects, also among the application of different minor community infrastructures these projects were identified as the works for the “wastewater collection” along with the treatment in Greece and they provide a road map in this section there are several plans that are being used in these situations such as
Climate change and adaptation theory
The effects of climate change are becoming more and more evident and clear to the people. Several European countries started to design national strategies by developing several adaptation plans. The priority of these plans was based on health agriculture resources raw materials water and the rising sea level. The world is experiencing a great climate change phase that grooves the difficulty and two things that can be recognised.
Fresh water resources are not in abundance and we can say that these are limited and increasing pressure from climate variability, pollution, population growth, and various other competitions. Water management operations are growing in complexity and importance, several challenges has he guarding the compliance of regulations, cost optimization, risk management, and sustainability of the water services that foster the need and demand for the application of new and unique ways of water resources to manage the solutions.
Reuse and Reclamation Criteria of Wastewater in Greece
With respect to wastewater reclamation and reuse, the Mediterranean countries are sharing many characteristics and new features that are related to climate change and the availability of water resources with social and economic conditions. These are more specific correspondent regarding long summer and short rainy seasons in the winter along with early spring. These features dictate some safe water reuse and intensive schemes that should be practised on a large scale in these countries for their increased need for water for several irrigation plants and other work-related plants. This is Needless to say that some of the features dictate the need of maintaining a non-compromising quality that can be treated and reclaimed in the wastewater plants and that should be maintained in public health standards that are related to reuse and reclamation.
In spite of these common features, some important differences should be mentioned and recognized (Journal.gnest.org, 2023). There are several countries that have wastewater treatment, which is dictated by strict rules, and regulations, discharge limits, are respective of reviews during the other main incentive for the treatment that is related to water reclamation practices.
Reuse of Waste water
Development in the appropriate guidelines and regulations for water reclamation in Greece can increase the reuse and reclamation of forest water in the country there’s take some considerations of the following sectors.
The increase belongs to a group of Developed countries. Greece is not economically stronger than other countries in the group but it has allocated significant funds for the protection, health, environmental issues, pollution, and several others.Grease is a member of the European Union (EU), and it has to be considered as a harmonization with the possible future in relevant legislation.
Due to the existing, concerns effluent discharge limitation is an extensive program for the operation and construction of several municipal water treatment plants that have been carried out in the last 10 to 15 years. Currently, a huge percentage of the population, which is about 60%, is enjoying the centralized wastewater treatment plants and the country is hoping to reach the number from 60% to 85% in the nearer future.
The minimum treatment that is employed is a secondary mechanical valuable treatment, which is usually full or partial removal by nitrogen that rules out more than 80% of the cases. The tertiary treatment is considered filtration that is practised in several plants but this process of engaging other clients in the tertiary is a time taking and cost-efficient process.
Water reclamation is important in some parts of the country it is critical for the southeast Mediterranean and the Middle East region people to get water without any natural freshwater source. There are alternative sources of fresh water available at cost. The water leaking within can be considered an attractive concept in ecology, However, these applications can be viable on the condition of high-quality reclamation of water that can be obtained at moderate economical and with lower health risk and with zero mortality rate.
Recommended reuse guidelines
The existing situation in Greece is concerned between other reuse availability and priorities that can be treated in plants and sufficient characteristics some stop it can lead to the recommendations that are presented in this paper the recommendations are presented in relation to several types of reuse with specific standard and recommendation treatments wherever can be applicable.
Agricultural reuse
Restricted and unrestricted irrigations so would need a distinction, there are several irrigated crops and for them. There are various modes of operations with restricted regulations including forests and areas where public access is prohibited. Trees industrial crops were cultivated and irrigated on the condition that during the collection of the foods, there is no contact with the ground. Crops that can produce products, which can be processed before consumption irrigation methods of spray irrigation are not accepted first off, unrestricted irrigation such as all the vegetable groups with products that are consumed in houses in a row culture. Unrestricted irrigations allow different irrigation procedures that include spray irrigation. The minimum treatment for restricted recreation is a secondary biological treatment producing disinfectants with BOD5 and the essay concentration is below 25 to 35 MG.
Urban non potable reviews and recreation
This type of reclamation and reuse includes landscape areas like golf courses, parks, fields, cemeteries, etc. Landscapes and recreational embodiment also includes firefighting, dust control, road cleaning, sidewalks, urinal flashings and decorative fountains. Several regulation-based distinctions were created between unrestricted and restricted using things in urban households based on level and frequency with the human conduct that can be reclaimed water the distinction between unrestricted and restricted urban reuse is a valid and safe procedure. It can be an organizational institutional and administrative arrangement that can safeguard the proper implementation well the reuse strategy.
Industrial reuse
Industrial reuse purposes include boilers, water-cooling and processing of water. tor the systems that used once through the system of cooling and secondary disinfectant which effluent with the FC concentration, that can be counted as no more than 200/100 I mean that so do you. Reticulated cooling systems, which are at artillery treated effluent, please one of the minimum requirements the additional treatment. This system maybe depends on the specific requirement with each application and proposed guidelines several systems may be practically the same with the same recommended restricted of irrigation, whereas in case of a reticulated cooling system boiler and processed waters, the standards must be same too and restricted irrigation.
Conclusion
This report is a summary of wastewater treatment, which is one of the main issues in Mediterranean countries. These countries are suffering through a great climate change situation that comes with less rainfall. so the main priority of these countries is to manage the ways that can help the government in reserving the wastewater and making plans for reclamation and reuse of that Wastewater. In this report, the Causes, and the plans taken by the government to overcome the situation have been discussed.
Reference
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Zeri, C., Adamopoulou, A., Koi, A., Koutsikos, N., Lytras, E. and Dimitriou, E., 2021. Rivers and wastewater-treatment plants as microplastic pathways to eastern mediterranean waters: First records for the aegean sea, Greece.Sustainability,13(10), p.5328.
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Journal.gnest.org (2023), Wastewater Reuse Criteria In Greece, Available at https://journal.gnest.org/sites/default/files/Journal%20Papers/02_Andreadakis.pdf, Accessed on: 12.04.2023
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