Dr. Eleni Athanasiou serves as the Head of the Department of Flood Risk Management, Water Scarcity & Demand Management (Directorate General for Water  / Hellenic Ministry of Environment and Energy). She holds a BSc in Geology and MSc, PhD  in Applied Geophysics (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki). She has over twenty years’ experience in natural disasters management and she was previously employed by the General Secretariat of Civil Protection and the National Observatory of Athens. Currently, she is working on the implementation of Directive 2007/60/EC "on the assessment and management of flood risks" in Greece by establishing flood risk management policy. She is representing Greece in European and International Expert Group meetings for water /flood related issues, such as : EU Water Directors, Strategic Co-Ordination Group, Working Group Floods, Ad-hoc Task Group on Water Scarcity & Droughts, UNECE.