In this episode of It Has to Be Said, Maria Titizian examines Armenia’s water crisis and argues that the country’s biggest problem is not a lack of water, but how poorly it’s managed. From leaking infrastructure and inefficient irrigation to untreated wastewater, depleted groundwater and mismanagement, the failures are systemic, and climate change is making them more urgent.
In this episode:
- How Armenia can have abundant water resources and still struggle with water security
- Why up to 70% of drinking water is lost before reaching consumers
- The scale of Armenia’s untreated wastewater problem, and why a €10.4 million treatment plant has never operated
- How groundwater extraction and Lake Sevan highlight deeper management failures
- Why fragmented institutional responsibility also means fragmented accountability
- How inadequate data and forecasting make long-term water management more difficult
- Why building more infrastructure won’t solve Armenia’s water problem without fixing the systems that manage it
Also read
System Failure: Draining Strategic Aquifers for Short-Term Profit
Armenia’s most vital aquifer is collapsing under decades of unchecked fish farming, illegal drilling and political neglect. The Ararat plain’s groundwater, critical for drinking water and agriculture, is being drained faster than it can recover, forcing the government into a race against ecological collapse. Hovhannes Nazaretyan explains.
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