Turkmenistan builds artificial island in Caspian Sea
By Gunay Hasanova
A group of specialists have conducted an environmental monitoring on the underlying platform, built for an artificial island southeast of the Caspian Sea, the Neutral Turkmenistan newspaper reported.
"The island is rapidly overgrown with saline grasses, which indicates the absence of harmful substances in the soil. In addition, on the slopes of the dams can be found snakes, which always settle near the waters where the fish live,” according to the article.
The construction of this unique facility began two years ago with the start of dredging work on the construction of an international seaport. Today it is the most extensive dredging in the world.
The island will be in shape of a crescent, with a perimeter of 7 kilometers, depth - 4-5 meters of water surface, the area - 160 hectares, or 1.6 million square meters. The island is expected to be used for eco-tourism in the future.
“A city with considerable size can fit in this area,” reads the article.
Te newspaper further reported that 2.5 million tons of gravel and sand mixtures had been used for the construction of dams and 16 million tons of sludge for spreading it through the pipes.
The Caspian Sea, the world's largest inland water reservoir not linked to any world ocean, is home to about 141 fish species. It is unique for preserving various relict flora and fauna, including the world's largest shoal of sturgeon.
The legal base for the protection of the Caspian Sea is the UN Framework Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Caspian Sea (Tehran Convention), signed in 2003.
The Framework Convention was the first legally binding regional agreement signed by all the five Caspian littoral states, laying out general requirements and an institutional mechanism for environmental protection in the resource-rich Caspian region.
Today this resource-rich water reservoir still awaits a solution for its ecological problems, which have occurred as a result of the development of hydrocarbon reserves in the sea and its surrounding areas, high density of population and industry in the adjacent areas, intensive agricultural development in valleys which have rivers flowing into them, and the fact that it is a closed basin.
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Gunay Hasanova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @gunhasanova
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