Abstract

Kalavasos Reservoir is located northeast of the town of Limassol, Cyprus. The storage capacity of the reservoir is 17.1x 10⁶ m³, while the water surface area is 8.75x10⁵ m². Vasilikos River feeds the reservoir with water. The stored water is mainly used for irrigation needs. The area of the basin corresponding to the reservoir amounts to 96 km². This study aims to estimate the mean annual deposition amount in the reservoir, which originates from the corresponding basin. For the estimate of the mean annual sediment inflow into the reservoir, a mathematical model was used. The model consists of three submodels: a rainfall-runoff submodel taking into account the actual evapotranspiration, soil erosion submodel (Poesen, 1985) and a sediment transport submodel for streams (Yang and Stall, 1976). The deposition amount in the reservoir was estimated by means of the diagram of Brune (1953), that delivers the trap efficiency of the reservoir. Monthly rainfall data from seven rainfall stations and other meteorological data from one meteorological station for 16 years (1986-2001) were available. For more precise calculations, the reservoir basin was divided into five natural sub-basins. The computational results concerning soil erosion were compared with respective measurement data for the reservoir basin. Apart from that, a sensitivity analysis for the parameters influencing runoff, soil erosion and sediment transport was undertaken.

Keywords: Rainfall, runoff, soil erosion, sediment transport, basin, reservoir sedimentation