The Geçitköy dam is a dam with a rock dam that initially only crosses the Mandara River about 8 km west of the city Lapithos stowed in the de facto area of Northern Cyprus. It was originally built as Dağdere Dam in 1989, but the dam was increased and the reservoir expanded between 2012 and 2014.
The dam is part of the North Cyprus water supply project (en: Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus Water Supply Project; tr: KKTC Su Temin Projesi). It not only dams the water of the Mandara River, but also the water from the southern Anatolian Alaköprü Dam in the province, brought in via an 80 km long underwater pipeline Mersin.
The fresh water collected in the Alaköprü reservoir is led to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea via a pipeline with a diameter of 1.6 meters. The pipeline runs through the sea, which is up to 1,400 m deep at this point, about 250 m below the water level. Since both the material of the pipeline (HDPE) and the fresh water in it are lighter than the surrounding salt water, the pipeline had to be anchored to the sea bed with steel cables so that it does not float to the surface.
Once in Cyprus, the water is fed to the Geçitköy Dam via a pumping station for intermediate storage, which was completed in March 2014. From here the water is further distributed, with about 15% being in a waterworks close by Nicosia The remaining 85% of the agricultural irrigation of the Mesarya Plain are to be used for drinking water.
Construction of the main works for the dam began on March 30, 2012 and was completed on March 7, 2014. The new dam increased the reservoir capacity from 1,800,000 m³ to 35,000,000 m³. The water from Turkey entered the reservoir on October 17, 2015. Initially, it will only be in the immediate vicinity (Girne, etc.), but in the future it will serve a larger area, including in the southern part of Cyprus, if the unification negotiations are successful.
