Recent rainfall brought relief to Cyprus’s parched landscape, but the island’s dams remain in crisis, with the largest reservoir nearly empty after months of drought.
A low-pressure system affecting Cyprus over the past few days delivered 43% of January’s expected rainfall in just five days, according to the Water Development Department.
The downpour sent water flowing into rivers and added to dam reserves, but reservoir levels remain at critical lows.
The Kouris Dam, Cyprus’s largest, with a capacity of 115 million cubic metres, has dropped to just 9.5% full, holding only 10.9 million cubic metres. The same reservoir stood at 22.1% capacity a year ago. The recent rainfall added 1.134 million cubic metres to Kouris’s reserves.
Across Cyprus, total dam capacity stands at 290 million cubic metres, but current storage has fallen to just 29.6 million cubic metres—10.2% full compared to 26.6% at this time last year, the Water Development Department said.
The Vyzakia Dam is in the worst condition, standing virtually empty at 0.2% capacity, down from 3% a year ago. The Germasogeia Dam has dropped to 1.2% from 27.7%, whilst the Achna Dam fell to 1.8% from 24.8%.
The Kalopanagiotis Dam bucked the trend, rising to 84.8% capacity from 62.3% last year. The Pomos Dam reached 37.6% from 28%, whilst the Agia Marina Dam held steady at 37.6% compared to 37.9% last year. The Mavrokolympos Dam dropped to 34.3% from 60.4%.
The Southern Conveyor system—comprising eight dams including Kouris, Kalavasos, Lefkara, Dipotamos, Germasogeia, Arminou, Polemidia and Achna—has a combined capacity of 189.4 million cubic metres but stands at just 10.2% full, down from 25.7% last year.
The Paphos region’s three dams, with a combined capacity of 71.7 million cubic metres, dropped to 9.4% from 30.1%. The four Chrysochous dams, holding 26.1 million cubic metres combined, fell to 12.2% from 24.7%. Nicosia’s three dams, with a 3.4 million cubic metres capacity, stand at 10.2%, down from 26.6%.
January has emerged as the best month of the current water year, with the first 13 days bringing 3.389 million cubic metres of inflow to the dams.
December recorded 1.903 million cubic metres, whilst November brought just 0.2 million cubic metres and October 0.095 million cubic metres.
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