Water Management in the Republic of Karelia: the Current State and Dynamics

The article, based on the statistical information analysis, describes the water economy of Karelia (water consumption and water disposal), their current state and dynamics for the period from 1970 to 2015 in conjunction with the socio-economic conditions of the Republic development. The volumes of water use for different water consumers (industry, household, fishery and agriculture) are estimated and the specifics of their variations are found. It is shown that the industry continues to be the main water consumer in the region. We have established that the share of household consumption in the overall structure of water consumption has been constantly increasing over the past 30 years, and agricultural water consumption has been continuously decreasing and tending to zero. We specified annual increase in the use of water for fisheries (store-pond trout farming). Some problems of quantitative accounting of water resources use and generalization of primary information have been discussed.