Kalavasos at 23.4% (4.00 MCM) — essentially unchanged, well above last year's 16.5%. Seasonal inflow 4.20 MCM, slow drawdown continues.
- Built:
- 1985
- Height:
- 60 m
- River:
- Vasilikos
- Type:
- Rockfill
Storage ForecastDeclining (3 years)
About the Dam
The Kalavasos Dam impounds the Vasilikos river in southern Cyprus, between Limassol and Larnaca, near the village that gives it its name. Completed in 1985, it is a rockfill embankment 60 metres high with a storage capacity of 17.1 MCM (million cubic metres), which makes it one of the larger reservoirs on the island.
Kalavasos is a working link in the Southern Conveyor system, the pipeline that moves water from the giant Kouris reservoir eastward toward Larnaca and the Famagusta district. Its own catchment is modest for a reservoir of this size — in a typical year it collects only a fraction of its capacity from the Vasilikos valley — so the dam leans on Conveyor transfers, acting as a storage and regulation node along the route rather than a self-sufficient source. The water it holds serves both potable supply and irrigation in the region.
Despite the thin local inflow, wet winters do occasionally fill it: the dam has overflowed several times since 2004, a reminder of how sharply Cyprus swings between drought and deluge. The surrounding Vasilikos valley is also known for its archaeology, with Neolithic and Bronze Age sites excavated near the village of Kalavasos.