The statistical analysis of records available over the period of hydrological years 1916/17-1999/2000 demonstrates that the precipitation time series display a step change or shift around 1970 (Figure 1). The time series can be divided into two separate stationary periods, with the mean precipitation of the period 1987-2002 being lower than the mean precipitation of period 1916-1987. Figure 2 presents the differences between the monthly mean of the two periods, for the whole island. From the figure, it can be educed that the decrease ranges from 20 to 140 mm and is observed mainly during the period December to February.

Figure 1: Mean annual rainfall for Cyprus (1987 – 2002)

Figure 2: Differences between the mean of monthly precipitation for the two periods (1916-1970 and 1971-2000)