Geographical Data
Serres county occupies the eastern part of Central Macedonia and is one of the seven counties of the Region of Central Macedonia, to which it belongs administratively.
To the north it is bordered by Bulgaria, in the south it is washed by the Aegean Sea, while west it is enclosed by the mountain range Kerkini – Vertiskos – Kerdyllian and to the east by the mountains of Orbelos, Menikio and Paggaio.
The total area of the county is 3,970 km2 and represents 3% of the total area of Greece. The County of Serres is considered to be one of the most prefectural county in Greece, with 48% of its total area classified as lowland.
Natural Environment
The predominant element in the natural environment of the Serres county is its vast fertile plain, surrounded by mountain ranges, with intense torrential action. Sixty-eight torrents flow into this green plain, “enriching” it in their passages with sludge, surface and gritty corrosion, with a total volume of 14,000 m3 / km2 / year.
This “landform” of the count, which with the products of erosion literally floods the cultivated fields of the plain and occupies the monuments of the county’s culture, is treated with a large torrent management program that has been constantly operating since 1932 with varying intensity. On the southern slopes of the Vrontous’ mountain ranges, the torrent basins are characterized by inadequate vegetation coverage (15-24% dose rate). A strong feature of this area is also its lithological structure, which is composed, of profuse soil layers by 30-45% . The forests of the county, which cover an area of 820,000 hectares, have been confined to the mountainous area surrounding the plain, and only the cultivation of poplar trees – public and private – follows the river Strymonas to the dry pond of Achinos.
Moreover, aquatic micro-fields are being developed in the former military zones of Strymon, above the Petritsi bridge, and in all the major mountain settlements, in the gorge of Aggitis and the springs of Agistro. In the lowland and semi-mountainous areas important wetlands, of international importance and acceptance, are developed.
The most important of all are the wetlands of Lake Kerkini, a “miracle” whose uniqueness was completed by man’s technical intervention on the natural features of Strymonas river. Another important but less extensive wetland site was created in the old Strymon Delta, which has received all the negative effects of the major road projects that have recently taken place in the area, thus changing the riverbed and its current new estuaries in the Aegean Sea are being created. From Strimonas, the last twenty years have been created and other smaller wetlands, scattered around and among the rice-growing of the county, in the central part of the plain.
From natural beauty point of view, Lailias forest area, in the Vrondous’ mountain range, is a great aesthetic presence, with particular phyto-sociological significance. At the same time, geological formations with fossilized fish and plants in the area of the Skopia and the Gazoros are attracting more and more the scientific interest of the experts. To the east of the county, the mythical Mount Paggaio, with the inaccessible canyons and the golden galleries of Philip and Alexander the Great, guards the north and the sea.
Angitis’ gorge, with its deep folds and vertical slopes, full of myths and traditions, drains the filippings of Philippi in a mythical construction of Philip of Macedonia.
Ecological Balance
Until 1900, extensive oak forests covered the north, semi-mountainous part of the county, from the city of Serres to the forest of Lailia. However, wars, fortifications and other disasters as well as the need for self-maintenance of the population have made this land exploitable. In the old Serres, the sound of the animal petal in the night cobbled streets is still alive today, when the entire cargo of timber was smuggled out of the mountains. At that time, even a few decades ago, malaria was the leading cause of death to the inhabitants and all the place looked like a vast swamp. Nothing was cultivated in the brush. The lake, endless as the sea, was filled with heavy fog even in the summer.
Strymonas was in his throne, the absolute master of the plain. And down there, in the east, a lake seemed full of ancient visions. Kerkinite Lake of Achinus, an old naval area of Philip and Alexander the Great, was connected with the Amphipolis Sea and thus, allowning the sailing of the triremes to the end of the world.
Then came the drainage, the settlement of Strymonas and the big Dam of Kerkini. The waters were pulled back, the ground has sunk and the earth thrives on living people who are searching for their own satiates: refugees from Asia Minor, Pontus and Thrace.
A life-like plain of alluvial soils, eager, traceable from trace elements and water, radiates and speaks its presence throughout Greece. The plain slowly becomes a garden of Eden. Cotton, rice, vegetables, everything in one and two productions. Water makes its miracle. Water plants are replaced by plow crops. Tobacco, once filled with gold the hands of its impoverished growers, is now receding. The lights light up in the lowlands. Factories are built, operate and produce agricultural products.
But once the unreasonable beast and grazing are retaliated. Large floods from the mountains drain stones, soil and wood into agricultural and cultural areas. Profitable interventions limit the evil. Dams big and small. Branches and dry stones. Forest restorations with a ban on grazing create perennial and protective pine forests. But the effort is slowing down. The sheep reacts, presses and destroy. Today, these forests are prematurely aged by the soil barren. Driven by their ownership status and degraded due to their species, they slowly fade without descendants, without the hope of regeneration.
Farming in the plains is suffered from floods. Livestock farms in the hilly and mountainous cause floods and destroy forests. What relationship can be found? If the livestock activities in the entire semi-mountainous volume were distributed equidistantly and with the works meadows improvement, the proper reprocessing work was done first on the wounded land and then even on the shallow surfaces of the plain, a positive ecological relationship could probably be established between the mountainous volumes of the county and in its vast plain space.
Agriculture
Of the 1,628,000 acres of arable land, 1,000,000 acres are located in the valley conventionally defined as the 50m altitude.
Of the lowlands, 700,000 acres are irrigated. Land reclamation works in the county are mainly constructed in the lowland area because they serve 2/3 of the arable land.
400,000 hectares was redistributed. Agriculture in the county is considered to be very well developed and is the predominant activity. There is a sufficient available water potential, the land reclamation projects have a relatively low cost and the exploitation of the works reaches 100% from the first year of their construction. The main crops are corn, alfalfa, sugar beet, cotton, rice etc.
90% of the cultivated land is private. The average area per family is about 28 acres.
Aquatic Potential
The most important surface water resources of Serres county are basically the rivers and torrents that cross the area.
The main ones are:
- Strimonas river with a minimum flow of 12 cubic meters / sec
- Angitis River with a minimum flow of 4 cubic meters / sec
- Krousovitis (torrents) with an average flow rate of 400 lt / sec
Other water resources are:
- The stream of Agistro
- The St. John’s Stream
- The stream of Poroia
- The stream of Eleonas
- The blue waters, etc.
The area’s surface water potential includes Lake Kerkini, whose area reaches 72,700 acres when the water reaches the altitude of 36,0 m above sea level and its capacity exceeds 300,000,000 cubic meters.
Flora
Flora in Serres county is very diverse: sandy and ammoniaphilous vegetation on the beach, hydrophilic and aquatic vegetation in wetlands, grasslands and riparian vegetation along the rivers and Lake Kerkini and finally, the forests of broadleafs and cones in the mountainous areas of the county.
Along the river Strymonas poplar trees are cultivated, with artificial vines of fast-growing poplar clones.
The forests of the county, covering 20.7% of its area, are divided into 10 clusters. The species mainly grown in these forests are oak trees at low and medium altitudes and artificial pine, beech and pine tree plantations at high altitudes. Few fir trees and even fewer of Robloo cover selectively the slopes of Pangeo, Mount Kerkini (Belles) and Mount Vrontous. Some areas in the coastal zone are covered by typical mica (bushy) vegetation with predominant species such as heather and coumar. Some others are covered with deciduous shrub species, which grow over the belt of leafy shrubs, mingled with the holm and include shrub-shaped oak trees, as well as shrubs of anchovy and faeces. The type of deciduous shrubs covers large areas at the low altitudes of the county and mainly around the semi-mountainous and some villages and towns.
In the forests of the county are also grown ash, linden, sorbia, elk, frax, scleroth, hazel, willow, poplar, walnut, scallop, chestnut, pine (black, trachea and forest), cypress, cedar and plane trees.
The sub-vegetation in the county presents a great variety, with species that are unique in Greece due to the climatic factor in the mountainous complexes of the area.
Fauna
Serres county has a rich fauna.
In the mountainous areas, thera are large mammals such as wild boars, deer, hares, bears, wolves, ashes, alley, otters and wild cats. The bird fauna is also rich with the predominant species of mountainous and lowland partridges, faeces, faso-doves, turtle-doves, wild goats, bark beetles, beetles, bee-eaters, grouse and even aquatic beetles and other aquatic species. It hosts even seasonal visitors, along with vultures – few in number – as well as the Aquila adalberti in Kroussia, big sticks, etc.
In particular, in the plains, some species are concentrated in the natural oases that still exist. Peduncinous partridges are accumulated at times in semi-dry soils (tobacco and vineyards), quails in cultivated land, bee-eaters, thistles and turtles, and in every settlement – small or large. Storks still live in many bell towers, roofs and columns, adjacent to rice and other water activities and land. Measurements revealed that 823 pairs of storks nest and remain in the summer in Serres. The largest percentage is in the lowland area and a minimum in the beginnings of hilly excursions, up to an altitude of 280m. Most build their nests in a settlement.
Also in the Fylida province, where the old structure of the settlements and houses is still preserved, most pairs of storks make their nest on the roofs. 87% of them receive chicks growing normally until they emigrate.
In the wetlands and especially in Lake Kerkini 227 species of birds have been counted. 128 species are nesting and 119 are used as a station in their emigration. Also, 77 species overwinter there, while 76 species are listed in the National Red Catalog (List of Endangered Species). At least 31 species are protected by Directive 79/409 of the Europian Union.
According to other quantitative estimates, the populations of many important species that stood in Kerkini until 1981 were undoubtedly the largest in Greece. But in our days, with the construction of the new dam and its dikes, these populations have fallen sharply. Also, during this transition period, the problem of botulism, which affected a considerable number of aquifers, resulted in significant losses of their population.
Moreover, with the elevation of the dykes and the rise of the lake level, large areas of bird nests were flooded, resulting in a substantial disturbance of the balance of the wider wetland system of Kerkini.
Since the shallow marshes of Kerkini occupy the most important position among the few remaining in the Greek wetlands and given that they owe a large part of the population of aquatic birds, which are characterized by great national and international importance, their immediate preservation and protection is an imperative obligation for all of us. Of the other mammals, it is remarkable the presence of the jackal in the lake area only the unique in scientific value presence of the buffalo herd in the shallows of the lake, as well as the otter in all the mountainous and semi-mountainous streams.
The reptiles are also remarkable in the whole county as the fish-fauna. The bull, the brussels, the eels, the grills, the gouls, the trout, the red roe, the mousse and others are of economic importance for the locals. Five breeding trout trouts and one breeding unit have been created. Their total production reaches 700 tonnes per year.
In the county of Serres, 25 large and small shelters prey hunters have been set up, including the hunted area controlled, whose annual hunting program allows – or prohibits with a special entry fee and a special price for each prey – a more rational setting of its prey capital. Also, the lake of Kerkini continues to serve as an annual or two-year shelter for all its aquatic and non prey species.
Mineral Resources
Subsoil resources are rich in the county:
Uranium, lignites, gold, geothermal fields, mineral water make up the spectrum of the subsoil of the county. More specifically, there are two ancient (at the time of Alexander the Great) gold mines: one on Mount Agistro and one in Paggaio, whose economic or other feasibility of exploitation is the subject of a special study as well as the exploitation of the uranium deposits located in the north of the city of Serres. Moreover, the three lignite mines, which had a remarkable production until 1950, have since ceased to be questioning the feasibility of their use.
A remarkable geothermal field extends from the area of Sidirokastro where there is the homonymous Loutropoli, to Therma Nigrita. The geothermy of this field is already used in greenhouses and thermal spas. Marble and inert materials exist in the beautiful forest of Lailias. Sphagnonas in Lailias has been proclaimed since 1985 as a Monument of Nature. And yet it is threatened with the assignment of granite quarry. Sphagnonas is a marshland of the temperate and cold areas of the Northern Hemisphere, with the main prosperous species of the schlibrary (the only genus of the Sphagnon with 350 species). It is a moss with a stem height of 30cm approximately, with a multilayer leaflet. With time, the underside of the shoot dies and with its long, oxygen-free decomposition creates the “peat”.