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The Nestos River Delta study site is located in Eastern Greece, near the coast south of the city of Xanthi, and centred near the village of Maggana.
During the decades of '50s and '60s, a variety of flood-controlling engineering works have been built in Nestos River Delta plain, in Thrace, Greece, in the framework of the then conceived drainage-system management and wetlands natural protection. These works included river diversion, caisson, modification, draining of coastal wetlands and construction of drainage systems. These interventions have been carried out without any provision for the induced changes in the ecological balance and have changed the groundwater-recharging regime, causing the restriction of the surface water sources recharging groundwater. The aimed enlargement of cultivated lands, on the other hand, resulted in water increasing demand. This fact, in combination with the construction of the interventions mentioned above, brought out phenomena observed, now days, at the eastern part of the Delta, such as groundwater storage decrease, gradual extinction of coastal wetlands, degradation of the related phreatic aquifers and soil salinization. The most affected region is that of Maggana.
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Nestos River Delta, Greece 
