Caspian Sea's Declining Water Levels Threaten Both Russia's North-South Project and China's One Belt-One Road Plan, Experts Say

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 7 -- Declining water levels in the Caspian are reducing the amount of cargo ships on that body of water can carry and threatening Kazakhstan's participation in both Russia's North-South corridor and hina's One Belt-One Road project, both of which rely on shipping there, according to experts in the region.

    The water level of the Caspian has been falling in recent decades and has already had an impac ton Moscow's ability to moves ships of the Caspitan flotilla via the Volga-Dona Canal to take part in Putin's war in Ukraine (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/03/water-level-of-caspian-sea-falling-at.html).

    But while the debate continues about whether the decline will continue or be  reversed (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/09/russian-experts-concede-caspian-water.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/08/putin-worried-about-falling-water.html), new data suggest that it is already having a broader and deleterious impact on trade routes. 

    Experts from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan are reporting that declining water levels on the Caspian have reduced the amount of cargo ships using that body of water can carry by 20 percent or more and restricting the capacity or even forcing the closure of some of their ports (casp-geo.ru/snizhenie-urovnya-kaspiya-negativno-vliyaet-na-paromnye-perevozki/).

    And thee developments have led Natalya Butyrina, a Kaspiisky Vestnik commentator, to conclude that Kazakhstan, which has been hit the hardest by the decline in Caspitan water levels -- portions of its coastline have receded more than 50 km in recent times -- may have to pull out of both Russia's and China's corridor projects.

    In that event, both Moscow and Beijing would have to turn to the region's railways and highway networks, neither of which currently carry the amount of cargo each hopes for and both of which would require years and perhaps decades to expand to the point where they could.

     Consequently, if the water level of the Caspian doe continue to fall -- and that appears to be the most likely course of events (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/09/russian-experts-concede-caspian-water.html)) -- these two major projects will be in trouble, restricted not by the actions of other countries but by the drying up of a sea few had ever thought possible until very recently.