water Article Sustainable Water Management in the Tourism Economy: Linking the Mediterranean’s Traditional Rainwater Cisterns to Modern Needs Jared Enriquez 1 ID , David C. Tipping 2, Jung-Ju Lee 3, Abhinav Vijay 4, Laura Kenny 1, Susan Chen 5, Nikolaos Mainas 6, Gail Holst-Warhaft 7,* and Tammo S. Steenhuis 4 ID 1 Department of City and Regional Planning, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA;
[email protected] (J.E.);
[email protected](L.K.) 2 Cornell Institute for Public Affairs, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA;
[email protected] 3 College of Arts and Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA;
[email protected] 4 Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853;
[email protected] (A.V.);
[email protected] (T.S.S.) 5 Department of Operations Research, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA;
[email protected] 6 Water and Sewage Authority of Thira, Thira, Santorini 84700, Greece;
[email protected] 7 Cornell Institute for European Studies, Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +1-607-227-9570 Received: 10 August 2017; Accepted: 4 November 2017; Published: 8 November 2017 Abstract: Communities on islands with mass-tourism, like Santorini, rely on vast quantities of water to develop the local economy. Today’s inhabitants of Santorini have largely abandoned the traditional cisterns that were used to sustain the island’s pre-modern civilizations in favor of water obtained from desalinization, ship deliveries, and well withdrawals. In June 2016, Cornell University researchers worked with the Water and Sewage Authority of Thera (DEYATH) to assess the viability of improving sustainability and water efficiency by restoring traditional rainwater harvesting and storage cisterns.