Peace Diaries Workspace

I. Azerbaijan Chapter 1: Baku / #245 \| Chapter 2: Mingachevir
	Chapter 1: Baku, Xatai Lyceum School #245 Teacher: Sevinge Jafarova

Imran A.
Environmental security is essential for the provision of health and secure longevity for current and future generations. Azerbaijan is a country with an unstable ecological situation, mainly resulting from intensive industrialization, oil extraction processing and the vast development of petrochemical, chemical, metallurgical and other industries.

When people in Azerbaijan begin to make industry, ecological consequences were not considered. Industrialization and the use of old technologies and equipment, have produced more than the permitted levels of contamination. Agriculture can constitute an important cause of pollution. In agriculture the use of chemical substances which end up in the soil and surface waters, pollute both the atmosphere and food crops.

Agriculture uses a great deal of chemical substances. State Committee of Ecology put the average annual use of chemicals in agriculture at about 340,000-350,000 tons. Essentially all of the 2 million tons of contaminants polluting Azerbaijan’s atmosphere fall on the main cities, Baku, Sumgait and Gandja. Among contaminants there are compounds such as as carbo-hydrates, oxides, empyrean, formaldehyde, fluorine, heavy metals and other compounds.

The amount of benzpyrene in the atmosphere of Sumgait and Mingechaur is 2,5 to 3 times that of Baku, where the atmosphere has 2,5 to3 times more formaldehyde than permissible standards. Most ecological problems are in settlements which have old and damaged communal services, including water supply and sewage pipes.

The situation concerning the pollution of the Kura River is illustrative of the threat. As the main river of Azerbaijan, the Kura provides 75% of the country (including Baku and the Kura-Araz valleys) with drinking water which is, essentially, unsafe to drink.20% of drinking water is below chemical standard and 30% below bacteriological standards. At the same time much water is lost through seepage from pipes. Baku, for example, is supplied through Shollar ,Kura,and Djeranbatan water-pipes. A total of 350 liters per capita of population is supplied, but due to the poor conditions of pipes, the level of water is about 60% of the amount supplied.

66,400 ha of land have been polluted by industrial processing. At present there are some new trends toward the recultivation and restoration of land. As a result of these efforts many lands have been restored for agricultural production.