Cyprus’s dams are 35.1 per cent full after the latest rainfall, up from 10.7 per cent a year ago, but a Water Development Department (WDD) official warned that storage cannot be considered secure.
Alexios Frangeskou, an executive engineer at the WDD, said storage had risen to 101.9 million cubic metres, compared with 31.3 million cubic metres at the same time last year. The inflows were fairly good for the time of year, he said, but “they are not the inflows that will dramatically change the water balance”.
While the picture is much more positive than last year, the dams remain only a third full, Frangeskou noted, adding that there could be no complacency. The department’s planning and projects are continuing at an undiminished pace, and last spring’s rain had simply given it some breathing space to work under less pressure.
About 220,000 cubic metres flowed into the dams on Thursday. Most of it went to the Kouris dam, which received 64,000 cubic metres, and the Arminou dam, which received 54,000. The rest went mainly to the Southern Conveyor dams in the Limassol and Larnaca districts, with some good inflows also at the Asprokremmos and Evretou dams.
Seeing rivers flow so early in the hydrological year was very positive, according to Frangeskou. It made the department particularly optimistic that more rain, and the first significant falls of the winter, would quickly bring water into the dams. Last year, inflows were long delayed because the catchments had almost dried out.
The mobile desalination unit at Episkopi is expected to start operating soon, and tenders for some major projects will be launched shortly, he added, expressing optimism that the department’s planned projects would be completed on schedule.
