After years in which every piece of news about Lake Prespa was news about disappearance, a different headline finally arrives: the water has risen. The level climbed to around 841.98 meters above sea level - a jump of over a meter and a half in six months, the first real turnaround after decades of decline.

The numbers offer both hope and warning. Since last December the level has risen by 111 centimeters, and according to some municipal measurements as much as 160 centimeters. Even so, the lake is still more than 5.6 meters short of the so-called „zero" - the reference level of 847.6 meters. In other words, one good rainy half-year doesn't undo the damage of decades.

The context is harsh. According to data from the Macedonian Ecological Society's measuring station in Nakolec, the lake reached its historic maximum of about 852 meters in 1963. By the nineties it had dropped eight meters, to 844, and then kept falling. Over 60 years the lake lost around 60 percent of its volume - a figure that says this is not a seasonal fluctuation, but a long-term crisis.

The reasons for the turnaround are heavy spring rainfall and increased inflow from rivers and underground springs - for the first time in a long while, the water coming in exceeds what's being lost. But experts warn that the situation remains unstable. Climate change brings more frequent droughts and less snow, and the over-extraction of water for irrigation doesn't stop.

The mayor of Resen is announcing wastewater treatment systems and river-management projects. That's good - but a lake isn't saved by one rainy summer or one press release. The question is whether the state, together with the neighbors who share the basin, will keep up the care even when the headlines stop being dramatic. Because water that rose by a meter can fall again just as easily.