The management of the Athens water resource system: Methodological issues

Athens, the capital of Greece, lies in a dry region and has suffered from frequent water shortages during its long history. Today it has developed a reliable, extensive and complex water resource system that includes surface water (resources four reservoirs), groundwater resources, 350 km of main aqueducts, 15 pumping stations and more than 100 boreholes. Since 2000, an advanced decision support tool is in operation for the management of the hydrosystem. Due to the complexity and peculiarities of the hydrosystem, the construction of this tool was not an easy task and required the development of new methodologies, which may be grouped into three categories: (1) Hydrological issues: Diagnosis of natural behaviors, explanation, description, and synthesis. (2) Hydrosystem operation issues: System parameterization, simulation and optimization. (3) Decision support tool integration: Data acquisition, software systems, management plans. The lecture reviews the water resource system with its natural and artificial components as well as the decision support tool developed. In addition, it focuses on some of the most interesting methodological problems and describes in more depth the solutions given.