The Mingachevir reservoir is a large reservoir in northwestern Azerbaijan. It is the largest reservoir in the Caucasus.
Overview
The reservoir was built on a section of Kura River flowing through Mount Bozdağ in 1953. The filling capacity of the reservoir is whereas the volume is 15.73 km³. It has been filled to its maximum levels in 1959, 1963, 1968, 1973, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1988 and 2010. The length is and width is. Maximum depth is, average depth -. The length along the shoreline is, the overall area is. The largest hydroelectric power station of Azerbaijan is located on the reservoir. Mingachevir Hydro Power Plant has an installed electric capacity of 401.6 megawatts. The length of the hydroelectric dam is, its width is and height is. The reservoir supplies water to Upper Karabakh and Upper Shirvan channels. It is also a source for fishing, water supplies and irrigation.
Orographic description
Cliffs are particular for the both banks of the river Kur and they are also observed around the Mingachevir reservoir where the river flows into. However, sandy-clayey sediments belong to Paleogene-Neogene widespread in the area of reservoir. At the edges of the Mingachevir reservoir landslide processes occur periodically.
As a possible military target
Within the context of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, scholars and politicians have speculated the possibility of the Mingachevir reservoir being used as a military target by Armenian forces in case of another war. Russian ethnographer :ru:Арутюнов, Сергей Александрович|Sergey Arutyunov stated in a 2010 interview: In the aftermath of the 2014 Armenian–Azerbaijani clashes, Armenia's Defense MinisterSeyran Ohanyan stated at the government session on August 7 that the Troops of the Civil Defense of the Azerbaijani Ministry of Emergency Situations have recently been mainly protecting the Mingachevir Hydro Power Plant fearing an attack by the Armenian forces. In response, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry issued a statement the next day which said that "the Armenian people should know that the response to any sabotage attempts against Mingachevir Hydro Power Plant from the Armenian side will be more miserable" and cautioned that Azerbaijan had the capability to raze Yerevan, Armenia's capital. Telman Zeynalov, president of the National Center of Environmental Forecasting, said in an interview that the entire area from Arran to Baku, the Azerbaijani capital, would be flooded if Mingachevir dam was destroyed. In his words, it would lead to a "large-scale environmental disaster." Zeynalov added that the Armenian side should be cautious because the flooding "would affect both sides" and most of Armenian-controlled Karabakh would also be flooded. The latter claim was rejected by Armenian analyst Hrant Melik-Shahnazaryan who stated that the waters of the Mingachevir reservoir cannot possibly reach the highlands of Karabakh. Armenia's former defense ministerVagharshak Harutiunyan mentioned attacking the reservoir dam in a 2020 interview.
