In the Holy Monastery of Simonos Petras a hydrogeological and hydrological research is curried out under the supervision of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. More specific the Laboratory of Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology of the Department of Geology supports the water recourse management, the chemical laboratory and the environmental monitoring of the site in order to ensure the sustainable water supply of the Holy Monastery. The monitoring network includes meteorological stations, water flow measurements points and water quality measurements points.
The preliminary results highlighted the following issues:
The research concluded in a three-phase construction plan for the springs, pipelines and water cisterns.
The springs are located within a dense chestnut forest and discharge fractured rock aquifers. There are three spring systems named: a) Dontas, b) Oxies and c) Mpouzntoumi. The numerous spring gushes are spread out in the Mountainous part of the Holy Monastery. In order to collect a sufficient quantity to met the water demands of the Monastery is essential to reconstruct more than 40 spring gushes points.
The phase one of the includes the following works:
Budget estimation: 600.000 €
The final phase includes the building of three (3) new water cisterns in order to increase the storage capacity of the Holy Monastery of Simonos Petra. The characteristics of the water cisterns are the following:
Budget estimation: 1.500.000 €