EcoLur
The European Union’s four-year program ‘Water Initiative +’ was launched in Armenia for 6 countries of the Eastern Partnership.
“The project will allow improving significantly the system of management of water resources in Armenia and their records as well as decentralizing the system of their distribution,” Minasyan said. Refraining from revealing the amount Armenia expects, he just said that plenty depends on the country’s efforts. “A more effective management system will make it possible to use water resources more rationally,” the minister said. “The situation will be analyzed, consulting on legislative reforms will take place and plans for management of water reservoirs will be worked out.” In his words, this will also lessen corruption risks, since nobody, including government agencies, will be able to use water reservoirs at their own discretion.
This program intends to improve comprehensive management of water resources. Armenia intends to improve monitoring of water resources, support for specification of water balances of the main river basins and implementation of water basin management plans in the country. Nature Protection Ministry intends to develop Sevan, Northern and Hrazdan basin management plans within this program.
“The enforcement of basin management plan enables, on the one hand, to essentially improve water management systems and, on the other hand, to combine water demand and supply entities their wishes through decentralization and, as a matter of fact, form more effective system. In parallel with water basin management plan we develop river basin management system, which will enable for further expectation of the support and implementation of serious environmental programs in river basin system,” said Nature Protection Minister Artsvik Minasyan at the kick off meeting of “EU Water Initiative+” program on 13 December.
“We also expect support in SHPP sector: out of 17 companies operating SHPPs only 8 SHPPs have installed water intake measuring devices. It’s too few and if there support in this regard, we can make all water intake system used by SHPPs more manageable,” the Minister said.
The budget of the program for all the six Eastern Partnership countries is €25 million. It is provided by the European Union. The Armenian allocation amount is still not clear. “The more active a country is, the more support it will get. At this moment, we are quite active,” Nature Protection Minister said.
December 14, 2016 at 16:46