Ancient Solutions

Over the past decade, a prolonged drought in Athens, Greece, has placed significant strain on the city’s water supply, prompting municipal leaders to come up with ideas to secure water in the long run. 

Luckily, they were directly above the most obvious solution.  

“It’s quite simple – we pull the water out of a Roman well, we process and filter it in a modern unit next to the ancient one, and from there it goes to homes,” Giorgos Sachinis, a director at the Athens Water Supply and Sewerage Company, told National Geographic. 

Sachinis was referring to Hadrian’s Aqueduct, which was built at the request of Roman Emperor Hadrian in 125 CE and completed in 140 CE to supply water to Athens. 

The system worked well for 1,300 years and only fell out of use when the Ottomans occupied the city in the 15th century. It was briefly used again during a water shortage in the 19th century.  

Now, the 2,000-year-old underground aqueduct will make water flow to Athens’ sinks, showers, and public fountains.  

The aqueduct’s central reservoir, where the waters gather, is in a public square called Dexameni – Greek for reservoir – which hosts a cafe and an open-air cinema. Most residents of the city don’t even know it exists. 

The construction operates through gently sloping underground channels that gather water from rivers, streams, and rainfall, channeled through a network of hundreds of wells positioned along its length, which were most likely excavated by slaves, according to Smithsonian Magazine. 

The aqueduct originally had 456 wells, and 390 are known to still exist, of which 174 are visible in public spaces. 

The system relies on gravity to move water and follows a twisty path through the Greek capital, stretching for 15 miles. 

For an initial trial phase, a 2.5-mile pipeline was built to link the central reservoir with suburban homes. It will supply civic buildings and then about 80 houses with non-drinkable water for cleaning and gardening, so that people can conserve potable water while using digital meters to track their aqueduct usage. 

The buildings closest to the pipeline will each be connected with an outdoor tap, while dozens of others will receive water delivered by a truck. 

The goal is to supply water to another seven districts on the aqueduct’s path. 

“It’s very exciting that something built 2,000 years ago will be used by modern Greeks for such an important reason,” Eleni Sotiriou, an Athens resident, told National Geographic.