Lake · Trinidad and Tobago
Navet Reservoir
The Navet Reservoir is a man-made lake at Tabaquite on the island of Trinidad. It formed behind the Navet Dam and is one of the main sources of drinking water in Trinidad and Tobago.
Where is Navet Reservoir?
Countries on its shores: Trinidad and Tobago.
Middle of the lake: 10.40° N, 61.26° W
The story behind it
The Navet Dam was finished in 1962. Later it was made bigger twice, in 1966 and in 1976, so that the lake behind it could hold more water. Today the reservoir covers about 3.24 square kilometres, and when it is full it holds about 18.2 million cubic metres of water. The Water and Sewerage Authority, called WASA, looks after the dam. It sends the water to towns and villages such as Rio Claro, Tableland, Biche and Princes Town. WASA also looks after the Hollis and Caroni–Arena dams on Trinidad and the Hillsborough Reservoir on Tobago. The country also has a very strange “lake”: Pitch Lake in La Brea, in the south-west of Trinidad, is not filled with water at all. It is the largest natural deposit of asphalt (bitumen), a thick black tar, in the world, and it covers about 0.4 square kilometres.
Find it on the globe
Navet Reservoir is there as a small blue dot with its name, right on the water. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.
It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.
Questions children ask
How big is the Navet Reservoir?
The Navet Reservoir covers about 3.24 km². When it is full, it holds about 18.2 million m³ of water.
When was the Navet Dam built?
The dam was finished in 1962. It was made bigger in 1966 and again in 1976, so that the lake could store more drinking water.
What is Pitch Lake?
Pitch Lake in the south-west of Trinidad is a “lake” of asphalt, a thick black tar, not of water. It is the largest natural deposit of asphalt in the world.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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