Managing water for Athens: From the hydraulic to the rational growth paradigm

Water management in Athens is at a turning point, since the relatively stable mode of State-organized and subsidized supply expansion has faced its limits in the drought-related crisis of 1989-1993. A shift in emphasis to the improvement of drinking water production and delivery efficiency is paralleled by an unimpeded and unquestioned growth in the scale of water use. In this article, we examine the intricacies of the evolving water management regime and argue that its contradictions will most likely reproduce the problems of the past, unless a more fundamental institutional change is worked out.