Reports on Environment and Urban Development for Alaverdy

GEO ALAVERDI: ENVIRONMENT AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 6. FUTURE PERSPECTIVES

The impact on human heath, economy, fl ora and fauna of Alaverdi increases daily. By nature and signi fi cance the pollution of Alaverdi impact the ecological system of the whole South-Caucasian region, fi rst of all because of the transboundary Debed River passes through Alaverdi, secondly, because of the forests of Alaverdi stretch towards Georgia and Azerbaijan by comprising one general ecosystem. Alaverdi has been facing two choices for a long time: economic development at the expense of destroying the environment and reduction in the quality of life, or establish the healthy environment, but remain in hard social-economic conditions. The contrasting of the two does not bring to any acceptable solution yet. It is clear, however, that the maintenance of the current environmental situation in the future can be destructive for the community. For the purpose of perspective development of the city, the Program of “GEO- Alaverdi” in the period of April-May 2009 formed a group of technical experts, represented by main stakeholders and known in the region environmental and local government experts. This group had to discuss issues pertaining to the perspective development. During the discussion held on May 1, 2009 the technical group developed the perspective development scenarios for Alaverdi. Taking into account the opinions and recommendations expressed by the working group, this chapter will discuss the inertia trend, the worst trend and the best trend scenarios for the perspective development of Alaverdi. These scenarios were developed with the assumption that the management of ACP does not yet fi nd an alternative solution to the current technological process for treating the discharges from the plant and avoid harming the environment. It means that if the plant continues to act then the pollution levels are not reduced and the plant must be closed to avoid current damages caused to the environment. 1. The inertia trend Description of the situation: Based on the results of analyses in the previous chapters, it could be stated that the community of Alaverdi currently represents a zone of ecological disaster. It was observed decrease in the population, multiple exceedances of pollution concentrations in the ambient air, pollution of soils with heavy metals, continuous aggravation of processes at a huge disposal of arsenic, pollution of vegetation by heavy metals, decrease of forested areas, lack of land fi lls, direct discharge of untreated wastewaters into Debed River, increase in morbidity levels for cancer and other diseases. All these terrible conditions have irreversible impact on the environment and the natural habitats.

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CHAPTER 6. FUTURE PERSPECTIVES

Environmental Knowledge for Change