Baku to Line Karabakh Canal and Other Waterways with Concrete to Reduce Water Losses

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 22 – The loss of available water supplies as a result of global warming and the reduction of the inflow of water from trans-border rivers has prompted Azerbaijan to address a problem that plagues many other countries in the former Soviet space but that they have done far less to address.

            That is the loss of water from canals and other water networks because the former are not paved and the latter are old and leak, something that not only costs Azerbaijan as much as 38 percent of the water it should have and ruins land under and adjoining the canals which in some cases turns into swamps.

            For more than two years, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has called for paving the major canals in his country; and now, with financing lined up and project planning close to completion, that project is now slated to begin in earnest (caspianpost.com/analytics/how-azerbaijan-is-losing-water).

            The centerpiece of this effort is  the Karabakh Irrigation Canal, one of Azerbaijan’s longest and most important as it extends more than 170 kilometers and provides water to 115,000 hectares of agricultural land and people in nine districts in the western portion of that country.

            According to Baku analysts, this canal, most of whose route is unlined, currently loses roughly 300 million cubic meters of water, something that restricts agricultural production in two ways: it limits the among of irrigation that is possible and it destroys agricultural land near the canal’s path.

            Baku officials say that their country is losing 38.6 percent of the water it needs from loss of water in the canals and irrigation systems across the country. That is almost twice the amount lost in EU countries where most canals and lined with concrete and irrigation systems are far more modern.

            They say that within ten years, the lining of canals and the installation of better irrigation systems will reduce the loss of water from that current figure to 20 percent and by 2050 to 10 percent. If that happens, Azerbaijan will be able to achieve water security almost regardless of what happens with global warming or the reduction of river flows.