Average Annual Rainfall In Greece Down 30% Since 1970s - Desertification Threatens South Of Country

[hatrack]

ATHENS - Parched land could trigger a mass exodus north from the Mediterranean if the long-term effects of climate change, construction and farming are not checked, a Greek environmental official warned on Tuesday. Swathes of Greece are also in immediate danger of becoming permanent desert, said Professor Costas Kosmas, head of a government committee set up to battle desertification.

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Greece, which is the committee's main focus, has been experiencing one of its worst droughts in 20 years and its landscape will change substantially within the next decade, Kosmas said.

Greece's average rainfall has fallen by about 30 percent since the mid 1970s, and last January was the driest in half a century. "About 34 or 35 percent of the country has been highlighted by us as extreme danger areas that face desertification, with great repercussions for humans and the economy," Kosmas said.

Parts of the southern Peloponnese region, many of the Aegean islands popular with tourists, as well as northern, central Greece and the wider Athens region are at high risk

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http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/40977/story.htm

[izzie]

1. Scary reading that. It is like how much of Africa has become dry.

I guess I mean that with a -er-I can not help but think we are really doing bad things to our earth. I am not into science but sure looks bad to men just half reading stuff.