ArmInfo. The water level in Lake Sevan as of December 25, 2017 decreased by 0.05 m (5 cm) and amounted to 1900 m 42 cm, the Minister of Nature Protection of Armenia Artsvik Minasyan stated on December 25 at the final press conference.
According to the minister, the volume of water discharge for irrigation purposes was 266.757 million cubic meters of the envisaged 270 million cubic meters water. This is 99.622 million cubic meters more than in 2016. As of December 18, about 109.290 million cubic meters of water flowed through the Arpa-Sevan water pipeline, which is 10.559 cubic meters less than the same indicator for the last year. The transparency of the water in Lake Sevan was up to 13 meters.
Meanwhile, as of May 26, 2017, the level of Lake Sevan was 1900.86 m, which is 24 cm higher than in the previous year, and 6 cm higher than in 1962. As it was reported, since 1962 to this day a similar indicator of the lake level is recorded for the first time. The level of the lake was constantly falling. However, on July 17, the National Assembly of Armenia approved the amendments to the program "On the restoration, conservation, reproduction and use of the Lake Sevan ecosystem", according to which the volume of water releases from Lake Sevan from 170 million cubic meters was increased in 2017. up to 270 million cubic meters. The reason for the increase in water releases was the fact that in the current year the filling of the Aparan and Azat reservoirs was 17 million cubic meters less than in the previous year, while the Hrazdan River is less than 40 million cubic meters full. In addition, the Akhuryanskoye reservoir was filled with 105 million cubic meters less. Despite the fact that the Ministry of Nature Protection of Armenia opposed the proposal to increase the water intake from Sevan, and independent experts unanimously reiterated that lowering the water level in Sevan would lead to irreversible consequences - to increase water logging in the lake, the bill was passed that, as and expected, was reflected at the level of Lake Sevan.