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By Peter Schwartzstein
Mr. Schwartzstein has been writing about climate and conflict for more than a decade and is based in Athens.
In recent years, Greek soldiers on patrol along the Evros River have found themselves at times unsure of which country they were in. Sometimes extreme rain swells the river, which forms most of the Greece-Turkey land border, enough to obscure telltale markers. On other occasions drought reduces it in places to a patchwork of stagnant puddles, with little discernible water separating the two sides. On other occasions, thick smoke from nearby wildfires has covered the river, also known as the Meriç or the Maritsa, in an all-concealing haze.
