OSCE Office in Baku supports project on unified water standards

BAKU, 26 June 2007 - The establishment of common standardized sampling and data management procedures are the main goals of a project supported by the OSCE Office in Baku, which is now entering its fifth year.

"As populations increase and economic development continues apace in the region, so the pressures on the finite resource of clean, safe water increase and co-ordinated action becomes imperative if a secure future for all the countries of the South Caucasus is to be ensured," said Torbjorn Bjorvatn, Economic and Environmental Officer at the Office in Baku.

The main goal of the project is to create a database of baseline water quality parameters, which will become the starting-point for assessing the effects of various anthropogenic and climatic factors on water quality.

The Kura and Araks rivers flow through the whole of the South Caucasus region and they share common problems related to municipal, agricultural, and industrial river pollution. These rivers supply water for direct human use, so that social and economic development in the region is directly influenced by both the quality and quantity of water resources they provide.

It is generally recognized that the data being produced by the project is the only reliable recent source of information on the Kura-Araks river system.