Armenia: Can Lake Sevan Rise to the Challenge?

Saturday, September 24, 2005
Institue of War and Peace Reporting
By Arevhat Grigorian {a reporter for the Hetq online newspaper in Yerevan}

Buildings and beaches around Lake Sevan are rapidly disappearing under water as efforts by scientists and environmentalists to reverse the decline of this huge freshwater reservoir pay off more quickly than expected.
[...]
Despite the fact the encroaching waters could soon be lapping at their windows, many who live and work around the Armenian lake are delighted to see it returning to former levels.

“I'd like to see the water rise as much as possible, and if necessary, we'll just move the building to another place," said Norik Simonian, a bookkeeper at a motel located on the lake.
[...]
Lake Sevan, one of the highest altitude lakes in the world, began dwindling in the 1930s under a ruthless plan to use its waters for irrigation and hydroelectricity. A paradise of beach resorts and holiday villas sprang up along the lake's edge.
[...]
The government stopped using Sevan for energy in 1999 and two years later parliament passed a law decreeing the water should be raised to 1,903 metres above sea level, the height at which experts say it will be possible to regulate the temperature and oxygen levels and restore the ecological balance.
[...]
Scientists had predicted it would take 30 years to refill the lake, but now forecast that could happen in just 15, as water pours in faster than expected, helped by unexpectedly high levels of precipitation.
[...]
Though they don’t know if the water will continue to rise at this rate, it seems likely that money will have to be found sooner than expected to carry out crucial preparatory work along the shoreline.

This could be a problem as the government has only a fraction of the estimated 30 million US dollars needed to remove trees, shrubs and buildings from areas that will eventually be flooded.
[...]
Environmental campaigners are worried that if money isn’t found to sweep up the rest of the rapidly disappearing land, the flooded forests will begin to rot and poison the lake.
[...]

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.