Water Resources and Risk Assessment Considerations in Armenia

The problem of water is one of the most difficult problems for our region, and the decision makers need to have authentic reasonable and accurate data. There were some attempts to apply risk analysis for assessment of water-related issues in the course of the last four years. But we have faced a number of serious problems. First of all, the economic crisis that affected the former USSR area adversely affected the whole system of environmental monitoring. This resulted in the republics in the Caucasus not having any sound monitoring information for water resources. Second, a usable conceptual framework must be developed. Even within the course of the first day-and-a-half of this workshop we have seen that we all have different understanding of the notion of risks, and sometimes those notions are conflicting. Risk analysis requires a systematic approach and for the last three or four years we’ve been trying to address it not just in an isolated way in Armenia, but also on a regional basis.