One of the solutions to reduce the blooming process in Lake Sevan can be the planting of plant species in the littoral areas of the lake and the rivers flowing into the lake and the creation of an artificial wetland environment. Garabed Kazanchyan, a researcher of " Copernicus Assisted Environmental Monitoring across the Black Sea Basin " (PONTOS) project, a lecturer at the American University of Armenia, said this on September 13, 2022, during a media tour organized for journalists in the Sevan catchment area.
Garabed Kazanchyan mentioned that as a result of studies carried out within the framework of the PONTOS project, they discovered that in some zones of the littoral part of Lake Sevan, for example, in the Hayrivanq part, the intensity of the lake's blooming is decreasing. According to the researchers, the reason is the abundance of vegetation in those zones, which absorbs the organic matter in the water. These plants can absorb some of the food from the dirty water. Plants compete with algae to see who can absorb more. If our analyses have confirming results, we can propose planting or cultivating such plants in different regions so that the dirty water passes through them before reaching Lake Sevan. You can also plant reeds and watercress plants on the banks of rivers, they will absorb dirt and filter the water before it reaches the lake,” he mentioned.
Garabed Kazanchyan responded to the question whether the listed actions can reduce the volume of possible blooming in Lake Sevan in the following years. "The cause of algae bloom is not the result of 1-2 years of exposure, but 40-50 years. We cannot solve the problem within 1-2 years. It can take 10-15 years. But you have to start now. The longer we delay, the more these substances will increase and the more difficult it will be to find solutions."
Reminder: every year since 2018, blue-green algae bloom of cyanobacteria occurs in Lake Sevan. Some of the causes of eutrophication of the lake are artificial fluctuations in the level of the lake, inflow of untreated communal-domestic wastewater into the lake due to the lack of treatment plants, a large amount of organic matter in the water, decline in fish stocks, increase in water temperature due to global warming, application of fertilizers in agricultural lands adjacent to the lake, which flow back into Lake Sevan together with precipitation and snowmelt.
Mediatour was held in the framework of the PONTOS program with EU financing. In Armenia, the project is implemented by two partners Environmental Protection and Mining Inspection Body of the Republic of Armenia and the American University of Armenia (AUA) Acopian Center for the Environment.
September 16, 2022 at 09:21