Cyclic Climatic Changes In Cyprus As Evidenced From Historic Documents And One Century’s Rainfall Records

Climatic changes, as related to the average weather conditions experienced over a period of 30 years, have been observed in Cyprus in recent decades. This is testified to continuous reduction of recorded rainfall. The most dramatic impact of such change, relates on the insufficient output of the waterworks of the Country, as compared to that for which they were designed for. Because river flow records of only a short timespan were available at the time of the design of the waterworks, simulated flows derived from much longer rainfall records have been used instead for most catchments in Cyprus, since 1916. The mathematical models used to derive the simulated flows, from the historic rainfall, did not take climatic changes into consideration, which up to that time have not been studied in Cyprus. As such, historic high rainfall values from the beginning of the century, produced high simulated flows, which have been used for the design of the waterworks.