Author(s): Hovhannes Tokmajyan; Armine Simonyan; Aram Abovyan
Linked Author(s):
Keywords: Water resources planning; Water resources management; Water systems; Cadastre
Abstract: Armenia is a small, mountainous, semi-arid country located in the Transcaucasian region. About 75 percent of the land area of 29, 800 square kilometres is situated above 1500 meters and fully belongs to the drainage basin of the Araks and Kura rivers. According to the latest calculations Armenia possesses around 7. 2 billion cubic meters of renewable surface water resources. However, water resources are not equally distributed throughout the country. They are scarce in the densely populated centre of the country as well as in the south and northwest. There is significant seasonal and annual variability in river run-off, including frequent droughts with low overall river flow, and risk of flooding in the spring. The main water use directions in Armenia are irrigation, municipal and industrial water supply, hydropower, fishfarming and recreation. Development and enactment of comprehensive monitoring programs is very important for the water resources efficient planning, management, protection, conservation and development. The existing monitoring system in Armenia was established during Soviet times, and utilizes equipment and methods developed in that time. During the last years, Armenia has made good restructuring progress in water management, supported by a legal framework that has separated the management, regulatory and operational functions in the provision of water services in irrigation, hydropower, and municipal water supply. The 2002 Water Code provides guidelines for water resources and systems management. The Water Code of the Republic of Armenia mandates the collection and storage of a broad range of data related to water resources and requires that these data be stored in a State Water Cadastre. By regulation, the Cadastre will consist of hydrological, meteorological and water quality data, surface and ground water data, information on water extraction and wastewater discharge, data on water use and water systems. The State Water Cadastre is a comprehensive information system containing both spatial and tabular data. The spatial data consist of information that could be displayed on maps (e. g., watersheds, rivers, water bodies, monitoring stations, and protected zones). These characteristics are usually associated with a geographical information system (GIS) and mapping. The tabular data consist of water data that cannot be spatially represented, such as historical time series data (e. g., average monthly flow rates), physical characteristics data (e. g. types of hydraulic structures, built and/or reconstruction dates), and river basin characteristics (e. g., basin area, average elevation, average slope, and population). The State Water Cadastre will serve as the main information system for water resources protection, sustainable use, planning and management. The main concepts of the State Water Cadastre development as well as the key organization responsible for keeping, maintaining and regularly updating the Cadastre are discussed in the paper.
Year: 2007