We've assessed 94,266 water-permit decisions across all 13 Hellenic Water Directorates — so you don't have to.
The water and sewer is there.
But is there enough for what you build?
Greek utilities can refuse new connections and the Water Directorate denies new wells — not because the water isn't there, but because the aquifer is over-drawn and the network is at capacity. A refusal doesn't refund your developer costs, your EIS study, or legal fees. Before you invest, check whether there's enough for your project — on the public record — before you commit.
Aquifer over-abstraction by district · WFD
Who gets a water permit in Greece — and who doesn’t.
Before you can sink a borehole or a well, a regional Water Directorate has to say yes. We pulled every one of those decisions from the public record — 94,266 since 2015 — and mapped what they show.
Greece has no water to spare.
And the shortage bites hardest exactly where people most want to build — Attica, the islands, the Thessalian plain.
of the water Greece abstracts goes to agriculture — the highest share in the EU.Eurostat env_wat_abs, 2022
the water-exploitation index in Thessaly — among Europe’s most over-drawn basins — while the national figure reads a calm 13.8%.European Environment Agency · WEI+
cotton uses four times the water of maize, and it’s Thessaly’s thirstiest crop — grown largely for export.Gkatsikos & Mattas 2021, Sustainability
In a country this short of water, how freely does it license new pumping?
94,266 decisions
Across all 13 regional Water Directorates, 2015–2026. Each dot is a directorate, sized by how many borehole & well permits it ruled on.
Almost none were refused
Against that scarcity, just 1,272 of 94,266 were refused — about 1 in 74. Size the dots to refusals alone and most of Greece disappears.
Two directorates. 80%.
Attica and Crete issue roughly 80% of every refusal in the country. Everywhere else barely registers.
Refusals don’t follow the water
Colour the dots by water stress: Thessaly is the most over-drawn basin in the country — and refuses 6 of 4,382. The two that refuse most sit at opposite ends of the stress scale. Statistically, no correlation.
Public, but not usable
The permit record, the refusals and the stress data live in separate government systems that were never built to connect. We reconciled them into one exact, queryable dataset.
The refusals are not where the water is.
Read every licence for who the water is for and how much it allows, and the picture inverts: the volume sits with farming, the refusals with households and hotels — and the newest claimants never enter the ledger at all.
of licensed volume goes to farming — irrigation networks and individual farms. Hospitality holds 0.2%.108,934 acts, parsed from the act text · Where the water goes →
data-centre abstraction licence on record. Data centres and hotels draw from the public mains — permitted by environmental approval, invisible to the water-permit ledger.Diavgeia · ΚΥΑ 69748/2024 · the permit trail →
Athens’ usable reserves in twelve months — 363 M m³ at the drought floor on 2025-11-25, 569 M on 2026-10-13. The year the water came back.ΕΥΔΑΠ daily reservoir data · the dashboard →
So the question is not only who is refused. It is who is never asked.
So — is there enough water for what you build?
Check any municipality against the exact record — refusals, drought stress and network capacity — before you commit a euro.
Check your municipality →All you want is complete water data. The Hellenic record is split across five separate databases — so we aggregated it for you.
Every water decision in Greece is public — the record is genuinely open. But the five systems that hold it were never built to talk to each other: no shared key links a permit to its aquifer, its treatment plant, or an emergency declaration, and each sits in its own database and format. We pulled all five and reconciled them into one queryable record.
permit records — opened and read one at a time, then cross-referenced into the figures on this site. What it took to connect the dots:
Every figure on this site resolves to a stamped act on diavgeia.gov.gr — verifiable at source.
Two ways a project gets refused
Not because the water isn't on the map — because one of two systems is at its limit. A feasibility report checks both, on the public record.
The resource
Is the water even there?
The Water Directorate refuses new wells where the aquifer is over-drawn — recharged slower than it’s pumped.
84of 588 groundwater bodies over-abstracted · WFD
The network
Can the utility take it?
The utility refuses connections where the sewerage plant is full or failing — even if the aquifer is fine.
41plants non-compliant, 31 at capacity · ΥΠΕΝ 2025
A green aquifer is not a green light. The Plaka 5★ had good water — but the plant serving it was near capacity, and the connection was refused. Most checks miss this. Ours doesn't.
You've already spent it.
- ✕Developer & site costs — spent
- ✕Environmental Impact Study — commissioned
- ✕Legal & consultant fees — paid
- ✕A season, or a year, of time — lost
None of it is refunded when the answer is no.
- ✓Your project's water & wastewater demand, modelled
- ✓Checked against documented capacity & refusals
- ✓A GREEN / YELLOW / RED verdict — every figure cited
- ✓In about a minute, not a quarter
Know the answer while it's still cheap to hear it.
How the check works
YOUR PROJECT
Describe the build
Municipality, type, size — a hotel, a farm parcel, a data-center load.
THE PUBLIC RECORD
Matched to the data
Diavgeia decisions (each with an ΑΔΑ), refusals, drought and aquifer status.
THE ANSWER
A cited verdict
Where you stand on capacity, and why — before an EIS is filed.
What a report answers
What a report delivers
Sample · 5★ hotel + pool
Agios Nikolaos (Plaka), Crete
Documented refusal on record
236.26 m³/day
DEYA Ag. Nikolaos · 5★ at Plaka · public record
Your projected peak demand
Modelled for your exact build — unlock to see it
Sewerage connection
Impossible
Stated by the utility · public record
Every figure cited
ΑΔΑ + press
Diavgeia & confirmed reporting
A near-identical build on this site was refused for capacity— the utility said it couldn't guarantee supply.
View →Inside every report
- A GREEN / YELLOW / RED verdictWhere you stand on capacity, and why.
- Your projected water & wastewater demandA peak-day model for your exact build.
- The capacity cross-referenceDocumented refusals, drought and reservoir status for that municipality.
- Every figure citedDiavgeia ΑΔΑ and official statistics, each read against the record before it backs a report.
- Plain-language guidanceWhat it means, and what to check next.
Choose a report
See pricing- €149
Pre-permit feasibility
Developers · architects · EIS consultants
- €99
Farm irrigation water-risk
Growers · co-ops · agri-lenders
- €490
Data-center water-siting
Hyperscalers · site selection · ESG
- Free
Municipal capacity dashboard
DEYAs · municipal & tourism offices
- €19/mo
Operator alerts
Hotels · short-term-rental operators
It's already happening — in public
These weren't refused for lack of water — they were refused for lack of capacity. The aquifer is over-drawn and the network is at its limit. Every refusal is on the public record, with an ΑΔΑ — and on the hottest islands, they skew corporate.
Built on the public record
The moat isn't the calculator — it's the data. Every figure is cited, and every source is read against the official record before it backs a paid report.
Sources read against the record
21 / 21
Only figures a person has checked on the live page back a paid report.
Official registries
Diavgeia + ΥΠΕΝ
DEYA decisions (with an ΑΔΑ) and Water-Framework-Directive aquifer status from open-data portals.
Open dataset
greekwaterdata
The whole dataset is a standalone public repo the app consumes.
Spain already gates this by law
Article 25.4, Spanish Water Law (RDL 1/2001) — mandatory pre-permit water-availability report
- When a plan implies new water demand, the river-basin authority must state whether sufficient resources exist — before approval.
- Effectively binding: a negative report renders the development materially unviable.
- Default-to-negative: if the authority does not respond in time, the report is deemed unfavorable.
- Enforced: >90 Spanish urban plans have been annulled by courts for failing to justify water availability.
A report costs less than a wasted permit.
Screen your project against the water record before you spend on engineering, an EIS, or capital.
Based on publicly available secondary reporting and modelled coefficients, not official utility data feeds. A screening aid and guidance tool — not a guarantee of permit approval or water availability, and not a substitute for professional engineering, agronomy, or EIS review.