Drought: Surface area of lake Mornos down 44% – Rainfall at the lowest levels of the past decade

Concerns are mounting implicit the hazard of drought successful Attica, arsenic h2o reserves successful Lake Mornos, the main reservoir supplying the Athens basin, person dropped to historic lows.

Official information uncover the severity of the situation. According to EYDAP’s latest measurements, arsenic of October 23, 2025, the Mornos reservoir held only 156,996,000 cubic meters of h2o — the lowest level successful 15 years for this date, marking a nearly 45% drop compared to the aforesaid clip past twelvemonth (285,021,000 m³ connected 23/10/2024).

Surface Area of Lake Mornos Down 44%

Satellite information from the National Observatory of Athens (NOA) corroborate the captious condition.
An investigation conducted by Meteo.gr connected October 9, 2025, showed that the lake’s aboveground country had shrunk to 8.3 quadrate kilometers, a 44% decrease compared to the 2016–2024 mean of 14.9 km².

The melodramatic driblet successful h2o levels has exposed an eerie landscape: the submerged colony of Kallio, erstwhile hidden beneath the surface, has re-emerged — a show reminiscent of the terrible drought of the aboriginal 1990s, arsenic captured successful drone footage by the Orange Press Agency (September 15, 2025).

“2025 Is One of the Driest Years of the Decade”

Speaking to the Orange Press Agency, Kostas Lagouvardos, Research Director astatine the National Observatory of Athens, explained:

“Both outer imagery and rainfall measurements successful the Mornos portion amusement that we are astatine highly debased levels for this clip of year. It’s not arsenic atrocious arsenic 1993, but compared to the past decade, this is 1 of the driest years.”

Rainfall astatine a 10-Year Low

Graphs from the Observatory exemplify the inclination clearly: total rainfall successful the Mornos country since the commencement of 2025 has remained consistently beneath the 2015–2024 average.

“Rainfall this twelvemonth has been among the lowest successful the past 10 years,” Lagouvardos noted.

He added that snow cover during the past wintertime was besides good beneath mean (2005–2024), depriving the reservoir of important meltwater during spring.

“It’s earthy to beryllium acrophobic astir what lies up — particularly if this wintertime brings small snowfall oregon rain. We anticipation that the coming months volition bring capable precipitation and snowfall to assistance offset the existent deficit,” helium concluded.

“Bleak” Figures for Mornos Water Reserves

An Orange Press Agency examination of publically disposable EYDAP data
(source) shows a dependable diminution successful Mornos h2o reserves (in cubic meters) measured each twelvemonth connected October 23:

• 2025: 156,996,000 m³ (lowest successful 15 years)
• 2024: 285,021,000 m³
• 2023: 496,455,000 m³
• 2022: 601,375,000 m³
• 2021: 523,928,000 m³
• 2020: 489,881,000 m³
• 2019: 532,841,000 m³
• 2018: 605,563,000 m³ (highest successful 15 years)
• 2017: 482,332,000 m³
• 2016: 573,263,000 m³
• 2015: 591,653,000 m³
• 2014: 533,100,000 m³
• 2013: 577,015,000 m³
• 2012: 507,466,000 m³
• 2011: 521,016,000 m³
• 2010: 554,770,000 m³