The Caspian sea is disappearing

Azerbaijanis living on the shores of the Caspian Sea report the appearance of shoals, a drop in sea level with the access to the surface of previously underwater pipes, sections of the bottom.  New islands have appeared in the Baku Bay. A spectacular indicator of the shallowing of the Caspian Sea was the widespread photo of surface swings on one of the beaches of Absheron, in the village of Mardakyan. Previously, people riding on swings touched the water with their feet, sending splashes into the air. Now these swings were several meters away from the water.

And on a distant historical scale, the spectacular indicator of the gradual withdrawal of the seawater edge is the traces of sea waves on the walls of the Baku Fortress and the Maiden Tower.  Now between these ancient buildings and the sea runs a wide avenue of Oilmen and an even more extensive Primorsky Boulevard.

Since 2005, the level of the Caspian Sea has been decreasing by about 20 cm per year. The Azerbaijani leadership is not concerned about the shallowing of the Caspian Sea, in any case, this problem was not mentioned in the speeches of statesmen.  Perhaps because the sea surface level decreases faster in the northern part of the reservoir.

Gradual shallowing has been going on for the last 20 years and the situation is especially critical in the northern — Russian and Kazakh — parts of the Caspian Sea, says Dmitry Otinov, an expert at the Russian Ecological Society.  "The area of the water mirror has decreased by more than 23 thousand square kilometers," he said.

In October 2023, the All-Russian Research Institute for Civil Defense and Emergency Situations warned about the risk of incidents with ships in the Caspian Sea against the background of declining sea water.

State Duma deputy from Dagestan, member of the International Affairs Committee Saigidpasha Umahanov reports that since 2005, the water level in the Caspian Sea has fallen by one and a half meters. "This is a big problem for all landlocked countries. Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Iran, Russia, Turkmenistan will have to solve it together."

80-85% of the water flows into the Caspian Sea from the Russian Volga River. Nine reservoirs have been built on it: Verkhnevolzhskoye reservoir; Ivankovskoye; Uglich reservoir; Rybinsk reservoir; Gorky reservoir; Cheboksary reservoir; Kuibyshev reservoir (one of the largest in the world); Saratov reservoir; Volgograd reservoir.  These facilities were built in Soviet times to take water for agricultural purposes and definitely reduce the flow of water into the Caspian along the Volga.  In recent years, the volume of drainage along the Volga has decreased by 25-30%. Therefore, the decrease in the level of the Caspian Sea is becoming more and more noticeable. The Kura River brings 7-8 cubic km of water to the Caspian Sea per year.

Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Magomed-Rasul Magomedov compares the Caspian Sea to a bucket into which waste is poured. The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed body of water on Earth, a pool of toxic waste accumulation. The negative consequences of this will only increase," the scientist believes.

"60% of the waste from the European part of Russia flows through the Volga into the Caspian Sea, and there is also oil waste, waste from enterprises, untreated wastewater from Dagestan and other regions that go along the Terek," he told Izvestia.

Not only the five member countries of the convention have an impact on the sea, but also four more countries of the Caspian catchment area — Georgia, Armenia, Turkiye and Uzbekistan.

Magomed-Rasul Magomedov notes that "the most unexpected consequences of pollution" have been repeatedly observed over the past 30 years: from pathologies in Caspian seals to abnormal algal blooms. And this only underlines that the parties do not have the necessary and reliable operational information about the processes taking place in the marine environment. Among other things, he considers the reason to be "the almost complete decline of systematic scientific research in recent decades."

Umaira Taghieva, Deputy Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan, said that over the past ten years, the level of the Caspian Sea has decreased by 114 centimeters.

The head of the Department of the Institute of Geography of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan, Amir Aliyev, says that over the past 4,000 years, the level of the Caspian Sea has been decreasing every 250 years, then rising during the same period. "From 1937 to the present, there have been three sharp changes in the level of the Caspian Sea. From 1837 to 1930, the level dropped by about 1 meter, from 1930 to 1977 - by 3 meters, from 1978 to 1995, on the contrary, it rose by 2.5 meters. From 1995 to the present day, the level of the Caspian Sea has decreased by 2 meters. And this decline will continue until 2040," Aliyev said.

He said that over the past 200 years, the level of the Caspian Sea was the lowest in 1977 – then it was 60-70 cm lower than at present.

The falling level of the Caspian Sea has a negative impact on the oil industry and fishing.

Since Soviet times, scientists have been discussing projects to save the Caspian Sea. Projects to connect the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea or the Persian Gulf have been rejected, building expensive canals through Georgia or Iran. By opening the Caspian Sea to the waters of the world's very salty ocean, you can destroy the entire flora, fish and fauna of the Caspian Sea.

It is also unrealistic to close reservoirs on the Volga, as this will lead to the destruction of the agricultural industry on the shores of these reservoirs and stop generating electricity at the Volga hydroelectric power plants.

Anatoly Frolov, a leading researcher at the Institute of Water Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, believes that maintaining the current situation will lead to the disappearance of the Northern Caspian Sea. Two deep-water reservoirs may remain from it.

"It is possible to prevent or at least mitigate the current lowering of the Caspian Sea level. For example, in case of the consent of the Republic of Turkmenistan and the joint efforts of all Caspian littoral countries, to build and put into operation a regulated structure in the strait that will connect the Caspian Sea and the Kara-Bogaz-Gol Bay. This will ensure the saving of seawater up to 18-20 cubic km/year."