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44 pages, 21810 KiB

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A Historical Review of the Land Subsidence Phenomena Interaction with Flooding, Land Use Changes, and Storms at the East Thessaly Basin—Insights from InSAR Data

by Nikolaos Antoniadis and Constantinos Loupasakis

Land 2025, 14(4), 827; https://doi.org/10.3390/land14040827 - 10 Apr 2025

Viewed by 1567

Abstract

The Thessaly Plain, Greece’s largest alluvial basin, has undergone significant geological, hydrological, and anthropogenic transformations. This study synthesises historical records, geological and hydrogeological studies to assess the evolution of the East Thessaly Plain, focusing on land use changes, groundwater management, and environmental challenges. Intensive agricultural practices, particularly from the 1970s onward, have led to groundwater overexploitation, land subsidence, and declining water quality. The overexploitation of the aquifers, exacerbated by extensive irrigation and inefficient water management, has resulted in critical groundwater shortages and widespread subsidence, particularly in the Larissa–Karla and Titarisios Cone systems. Additionally, recent extreme weather events, including Medicane Daniel (2023) and Medicane Ianos (2020), have highlighted the region’s vulnerability to hydrological hazards, with extensive flooding affecting urban and agricultural areas. The re-emergence of Lake Karla as a flood retention area underscores the unintended consequences of past drainage efforts. Remote sensing, geodetic surveys, and historical records have been examined to assess the interplay between groundwater withdrawals, land subsidence, and flood risks. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Assessing Land Subsidence Using Remote Sensing Data)

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21 pages, 5458 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Groundwater Nitrate Contamination Integrated Modeling for Climate and Water Resources Scenarios: The Case of Lake Karla Over-Exploited Aquifer

by Pantelis Sidiropoulos, Georgios Tziatzios, Lampros Vasiliades, Nikitas Mylopoulos and Athanasios Loukas

Water 2019, 11(6), 1201; https://doi.org/10.3390/w11061201 - 8 Jun 2019

Cited by 29 | Viewed by 5481

Abstract

Groundwater quantity and quality degradation by agricultural practices is recorded as one of the most critical issues worldwide. This is explained by the fact that groundwater is an important component of the hydrological cycle, since it is a source of natural enrichment for rivers, lakes, and wetlands and constitutes the main source of potable water. The need of aquifers simulation, taking into account water resources components at watershed level, is imperative for the choice of appropriate restoration management practices. An integrated water resources modeling approach, using hydrological modeling tools, is presented for assessing the nitrate fate and transport on an over-exploited aquifer with intensive and extensive agricultural activity under various operational strategies and future climate change scenarios. The results indicate that climate change affects nitrates concentration in groundwater, which is likely to be increased due to the depletion of the groundwater table and the decrease of groundwater enrichment in the future water balance. Application of operational agricultural management practices with the construction and use of water storage infrastructure tend to compensate the groundwater resources degradation due to climate change impacts. Full article

(This article belongs to the Section Water, Agriculture and Aquaculture)

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8 pages, 2250 KiB

Open AccessProceeding Paper

Modeling Flow and Nitrate Transport in an Over-Exploited Aquifer of Rural Basin Using an Integrated System: The Case of Lake Karla Watershed

by Pantelis Sidiropoulos, Georgios Tziatzios, Lampros Vasiliades, George Papaioannou, Nikitas Mylopoulos and Athanasios Loukas

Proceedings 2018, 2(11), 667; https://doi.org/10.3390/proceedings2110667 - 1 Aug 2018

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1884

Abstract

The paper proposes an integrated modeling system consisting of a surface hydrology model, a water reservoir model, a Lake-Aquifer Interaction model, aground water model, and a transport and dispersion model to study ground water quality through two different operational management scenarios. The first scenario is examining the existing condition of groundwater quality without the reservoir operation while the second scenario is assessing the impact of the reconstruction of Lake Karla in the groundwater quality. The study highlights the importance of using an integrated hydrological modeling approach to investigate the groundwater quality in a region which is characterized by extensive agricultural activity. Full article

(This article belongs to the Proceedings of EWaS3 2018)

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