Problems in Hydropower Development of Lake Baikal: the Past and the Present

The article discusses the relationship of the hydropower industry with the socio-economic sphere and natural environment in the Baikal region under different hydrological conditions and water management in Russia. The lake has been used as a reservoir for the Irkutsk Hydroelectric Power Station (HPS) since a hydroelectric dam blocked the Angara River. When the Angara Hydroelectric Power Chain started work, the Irkutsk Reservoir became the main one, which has defined the importance of Lake Baikal for the Siberian Interconnected Power System and Angarsk multipurpose water-resources scheme. Depending on hydrological conditions during the operation of the Angara Hydroelectric Power Chain, we can distinguish several stages of lake-level fluctuations. In 1983-1995, the level of the Irkutsk Reservoir repeatedly exceeded the normal design level. In 2014, a catastrophic water shortage in the catchment basin of Lake Baikal exacerbated negative effect on the socio-economic sphere and natural environment on the eastern shore of the lake. When Baikal became a World Natural Heritage site, legislative amendments of 2001 limited the threshold levels of the lake within one-meter range. This restriction substantially affected hydroelectric regimes in terms of social and economic security in the downstream of the Irkutsk HPS within the boundaries of Irkutsk and on the shore of Lake Baikal under the new Russian economic conditions that result from market transformations and the renovation of the Water Code. The article examines the role that the Irkutsk HPS and Lake Baikal, as the primary part of the Irkutsk Reservoir, play in the development of the Baikal region. We also consider the problems related to the use of Lake Baikal under low-water and high-water conditions. The article determines hydrological hazards and threats to the security of the population and the economy in the downstream of the Irkutsk HPS and on the eastern shore of Lake Baikal in the case of high water inflows. We propose priority measures to overcome these threats and settle the interregional relations in the catchment basin of Lake Baikal. The measures include ensuring economic entities and lands within areas of periodic flooding and redistributing the hydroelectricity rent received by the owners of the Angara HPS between the regions. The aim is to manage the functioning and development of natural, technical, economic and social systems of the entire basin of Lake Baikal and the Angara River.