Greece faced with threat of future desertification

The Eastern Mediterranean and Greece run the risk of desertification over coming decades according to climate experts who spoke to Kathimerini on the occasion of World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought on Monday.

Christos Zerefos, head of the Research Center for Atmospheric Physics and Climatology at the Academy of Athens, said, “Around 30 percent of Greece could be threatened with desertification.”

Soils will be undermined, he said, to the extent that they lose their fertility and “die.” Zerefos said the threat looms large in areas with declining rainfall levels and extreme weather conditions – floods and droughts.

The areas under the greatest threat are the eastern Peloponnese, eastern central Greece, Macedonia and Thrace in the north, the Aegean islands and parts of Crete.

The research head at the National Observatory of Athens, Christos Giannakopoulos, lays the blame on “climate change and erroneous human intervention.”