The impact of groundwater production and exploitation on ecosystem in azerbaijan

Abstract

The Azerbaijan Republic is located on the western side of the CaspianSea, in the and climatic zone and feels deficit of general waterbalance. Due to this, the rational exploitation of fresh and weaklysaltish groundwater has great importance. The production and utilizationof the groundwater caused negative consequences that affected on naturalconditions of different regions. For example, the decrease of thegroundwater level in a part of Qusar region has created some ecologicalproblems. In the regions of development of the relict forests thedynamic levels of the groundwater decreased on 25-30 meters. Thisaffected root-inhabitable stratum and as a result led to abruptaggravation of the ecological situation of the regions. It was requiredto optimize the production of the groundwater. Another example isQanikh-Ayrichay field. Here we can notice abnormally high hydraulicinterrelation between ground and surface waters, and undergroundcomponent of the river drain in the natural conditions formsapproximately 55-65%. When infringing given conditions by productionthe groundwater the decrease of their average level forms approximately50-60 meters. The appeared depression funnels cause tightening of theadditional volume of river run-off to the groundwater intake wells, thatis damage river run-off. Given volume of the river run-off must not becalculated twice when assessing the common water balance of the region.Opposite situation is observed in the Absheron peninsula where there arealmost no fresh water resources. The water demands are met by surfacewater resources of Samur river and groundwater transfer from Guba-Gusarregion of the Republic (more than 200 km from the demand areas). Thesesources are augmented with water from Kura river in the Ali-Bayramliregion (more than 180 km from the demand area), at rates of up to 30m(3)/sec. Due to the specific hydrogeological conditions, absence ofsewerage system and etc., it leads to land subsidence, landslideprocesses, flooding, and other environmental and social phenomena andabrupt aggravation of the geoecological situation of the peninsula, inthe whole. As it has already been mentioned a big part of groundwater inAzerbaijan is utilized for irrigation of agricultural crop. Mostly wenotice fresh (up to 1.0 g/l) or weakly saltish (up to 3.0 g/l)hydrocarbonate-sulphate and sulphatehydrocarbonate waters with differentcationic composition. The combination of cations form irrigation factorsof the groundwater and as a result forms opportunity to utilize it forirrigation of concrete soils. Incorrect calculation of given qualitativeparameters in the ``water-rock{''} system has led to salinization of thesoils of irrigated areas of Mil and Mugan-Salyan plains and accordinglyled them to exit from the crop rotation. At present time, melioration ofthese areas is realizing. Thus, we can certify that production andutilization of the groundwater is essential anthropogenic factor, whichinfluence on geoecological situation of the republic. This factor mustbe taken into account when forecasting water-related activities in thewhole and concerning exploitation of the groundwater, in particular.