Kannaviou Dam

Kannaviou Dam impounds the Ezousa river in the hills northeast of Paphos, Cyprus. Completed in 2005, it was the first concrete-face rockfill dam (CFRD) built on the island, and at 75 metres it ranks among the tallest dams in Cyprus. Instead of relying on a clay core, its rockfill embankment is sealed by a reinforced-concrete slab on the upstream face — a design that suits the free-draining rock of the Ezousa valley and marked a technical departure from the earthfill dams that dominated Cypriot construction in earlier decades.

With a capacity of about 17.2 million cubic metres, Kannaviou is the second-largest reservoir in the Paphos region after Asprokremmos. It captures winter flows from the Ezousa catchment on the western flanks of the Troodos and stores them for potable supply and irrigation in the Paphos district, complementing Asprokremmos in balancing the region's water budget across dry summers.

As one of the youngest large dams in Cyprus, Kannaviou reflects the final phase of the island's big dam-building programme, which ran from the 1960s through the 2000s and left Cyprus with one of the highest densities of dams relative to its area in Europe. Its relatively high, narrow reservoir sits amid pine-covered slopes near the village of Kannaviou, from which the dam takes its name.