Caspian Littoral Countries Expanding Dredging in Response to Rapidly Falling Water Levels

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 6 – All five Caspian littoral countries – Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation, and Turkmenistan – are currently expanding or at least planning to expand their dredging operations on that body of water in response to the rapid decline in the sea’s water levels.

            The water level of the Caspian has been falling for some time, but none of the littoral states have built and deployed the number of dredging barges needed to cope with this. Russia has reached out to China and Iran for help, and Azerbaijan has asked Turkey to play a role. But now, with water levels so low, all are devoting more attention to this issue.

            Russia has announced that it has begun dredging operations on the Volga-Caspian Sea Shipping Canal in order to allow its larger ships including vessels of the Caspian Flotilla and to continue to expand its trade with Iran (casp-geo.ru/na-volgo-kaspijskom-morskom-sudohodnom-kanale-nachalis-dnouglubitelnye-raboty/).

            Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have now reached agreement on joint dredging operations in the waters of both countries and in waters further beyond their coastal zones to ensure that trade between them can continue to expand and that they can maintain access to extraction facilities (casp-geo.ru/kazahstan-i-azerbajdzhan-sozdayut-sp-dlya-dnouglubitelnyh-rabot/).

            Iran and Turkmenistan have more limited programs but Iran’s sleet of dredging barges and ships is sufficiently large that it has been helping Russia with a problem Moscow lacks the fleet for. (For background on this, see  windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/03/caspian-sea-water-level-has-fallen-to.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/06/falling-water-levels-forcing-moscow-to.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/01/turkish-company-moves-super-heavy-cargo.html.)