Fisheries and Commercial Bioresources Management

Effective Regional Assessment of Contaminant Levels

Water level Fluctuation

Water-level fluctuations is a natural cyclic phenomena which causes serious consequences for the region. Water-level fluctuations have been known to displace thousands of people, destroy investments in industry and infrastructure and cause severe pollution threats via inundation of coastal waste sites.

Pollution Control

The Volga River, the largest in Europe, drains 20% of the European land area and is the source of 80% of the Caspian’s freshwater inflow. Its overall contribution to the Caspian may have diminished somewhat over the years due to extensive dam construction. Its lower reaches are heavily developed with numerous unregulated releases of chemical and biological pollutants. Although existing data is sparse and of questionable quality, there is ample evidence to suggest that the Volga is one of the principal sources of transboundary contaminants into the Caspian.

The Caspian basin is rich in commercially developable hydrocarbon deposits. There are significant numbers of oil and gas producing industries and new exploration activity is under way. Oil and oil products generate constant traffic that has been estimated to total approximately 10,000 shipping movements annually. The magnitude of oil and gas extraction and transport activity thus constitutes a risk to water quality. Underwater oil and gas pipelines have been constructed or proposed, increasing potential environmental threats. Commercial activity (fishing fleets, passenger, dry goods and other cargo traffic) utilizes the Caspian en route to the Black Sea or the Baltic via the Volga-Don canal system. This combined traffic has a number of possible impacts on the Caspian's environmental integrity. For example, the Volga-Don connection poses a threat in the form of introduction of exotic species through ballast waters inter alia, and stringent measures may be needed to prevent this threat.

Emergency Response

8. Human Sustainable Development & Health

Social and Economic Issues

1. An estimated human population of approximately 11 million is distributed around the Caspian shoreline. The main urban centres of population are concentrated on the western and southern shores. Coastal provinces in Iran and Azerbaijan, in particular, dominate the demography of the Caspian.

2. The current annual Gross National Products (GNP) per capita of the Caspian States are: Azerbaijan US$1240; Iran US$1255; Kazakhstan US$2030; Russia US$3470; Turkmenistan US$1440.

3. Principal economic activities in the Caspian basin include fisheries, agriculture, oil and gas production, and related downstream industries. At their peak, revenues to the riparian countries from sturgeon, including caviar, were as much as US$6 billion annually. Rice, vegetable cultivation and cattle and sheep husbandry are the prime agricultural activities in the catchment area. Oil exploration and production are increasing along all shelves of the Caspian by all countries, and are already well established in the Baku (onshore and offshore) and Tenghiz (onshore) regions. Oil production is expected to increase dramatically during the next few decades.

The Caspian Sea is in serious environmental danger. Iran has a small share from polluting point of view, but it gets a much extensive part of pollution created by other countries because of the sea currents in the Caspian Sea. Russians are the greatest polluters. They create 80% of the Caspian pollution. After that, Azerbaijan is producing some of the worst kinds of pollutions because of their outdated oil refineries and other oil installations in the Caspian Sea. Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan are after Azerbaijan in the pollution production.

According to the report of the Energy Information Administration in 2000: Untreated waste from the Volga River, into which half the population of Russia - and most of its heavy industry - drains its sewage, empties directly into the Caspian Sea. Oil extraction and refining complexes in Baku and Sumgayit in Azerbaijan are major sources of land-based pollution, and offshore oil fields, refineries, and petrochemical plants have generated large quantities of toxic waste, run-off, and oil spills. In addition, radioactive solid and liquid waste deposits near the Gurevskaya nuclear power plant in Kazakhstan are polluting the Caspian as well... The impact on human health has been meas

Lecture 18.