As the sun sets, it rises gracefully to the sound of croaking frogs, and pelicans fly over Lake Karla, one of Greece's largest inland bodies of water.
Drained in 1962 to combat malaria and restored from a valley to a wetland in 2018 to combat drought, the lake is now three times its normal size after last year's deadly floods. It has become.
How to deal with the aftermath of the disaster has turned into a debate about the future of agriculture across the Thessaly region.
Farmers around Kalra, many descendants of lake people who migrated to land just two generations ago, saw their properties and herds destroyed in last year's floods.
In September, an unprecedentedly strong Mediterranean cyclone, Storm Daniel, dumped months' worth of rain on Thessaly, Greece's most fertile plain, in just a few hours.
The floods killed 17 people, destroyed roads and bridges, and drowned tens of thousands of livestock.
Daniel arrived on the heels of a wave of massive wildfires, followed just weeks later by Storm Elias. These combined to cause what Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis later called the “worst flood” in Greek history.
The lakeside village of Sotirio was once surrounded by corn and cotton fields, but now lies on the edge of a swamp. The fields are covered in dark green water filled with insects. Even when the floodwaters recede, only silt and dead stems remain.
Angelos Yamaris, a third-generation farmer, said his family lost 50 hectares (120 acres) of cotton, 30 hectares of wheat and 15 hectares of pistachio trees.
“It was a complete disaster…I don't know if the fields will be productive even after the water recedes,” the 25-year-old said.
“We are basing all our future on this region and these crops,” Yamaris said, adding that it would take at least seven years for new trees to bear fruit.
Authorities have not given a timeline for recovery, and there are conflicting views on how to proceed. Thessaly authorities support the digging of a large canal that would divert water to the Aegean Sea.
But a Dutch water management company advising the Greek government is advocating a different approach, aimed not just at stemming floods but also preventing future droughts.
A company called HVA International is proposing to build dozens of small dams in the mountains to capture rainwater.
Thessaly also needs to reconsider its reliance on cotton, said Miltiadis Goukouzulis, the Amsterdam-based company's CEO. The region needs to exit cotton production while there is still time to conserve remaining groundwater resources, he said.
Greece is the European Union's main cotton producer, accounting for 80% of production. Cotton accounts for less than 0.2% of Europe's agricultural production by value, but the EU says it is of “very regional importance”.
Goukouzulis countered that growing cotton “is not profitable in and of itself, we all know that.”
“We calculate that if today's rhythm continues, we will be in a situation of no return within 15 years,” he said.
Thessaly's governor, Dimitris Koletas, opposes the abolition of cotton, which remains a lucrative industry for residents.
Koletas, a Harvard-educated professor who was elected governor in October, said cotton provides 210 million euros ($227 million) in income for Thessaly's 15,000 households and is an important export for Greece. He claimed that it was a product. In addition he will be provided with 65 million euros in his EU grant.