BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 4
By Fidan Babayeva - Trend:
The Azerbaijani Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources intends to buy 12 devices for measuring the volume of water in rivers flowing in the territories liberated from occupation, Azerbaijani Deputy Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Vugar Karimov told Trend on March 4.
The deputy minister said that upon the instructions of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev two projects were implemented in 2018 to clean up the contaminated areas of the airport and adjacent territories through the state investments.
"One of them was a project for the improvement of the area on the territory of the airport with a total area of 256 hectares in Chukhurdere,” Karimov added.
“The territory of the former oil depot, contaminated, was cleaned, the territory of the pond stretching 78 hectares was drained, a drainage system was built and landscaping work was carried out within the project,” the deputy minister said.
“The second was a project to clean up the landfill of the former iodine-bromine plant from various chemical wastes and restore its soil layer,” Karimov said.
“Some 65 hectares of the territory were cleared at the first stage (2018-2019), 100 hectares of the territory at the second stage (2019-2020),” the deputy minister said.
“More than 120,000 trees were planted in the cleared areas within the project," Karimov said.
“The water of the Hovsan aeration station, which was used to irrigate an area of more than 1,000 hectares, is currently being used to irrigate green spaces,” the deputy minister said.
Karimov emphasized that it is planned to prepare a project related to an area stretching about 150 hectares around Zigh Lake through the state investments in 2021 and in the coming years.
"This area will be also cleaned and landscaped in 2021 and the work will be continued through the state budget or other financial sources," the deputy minister added.
“The implementation of projects for the acquisition of hydrometeorological equipment within the state investments will continue this year as well,” Karimov said.
“Within this project, five air monitoring stations were purchased and installed in big cities of Azerbaijan in 2019-2020,” the deputy minister said. “Two early warning systems (radar systems) were also installed in Goygol and Shamakhi districts.”
“It is planned to purchase and install a new situational center for processing and modeling data collected from this equipment in 2021,” Karimov said. “Hydrological metering stations will also be installed. One of the most important points related to the assessment of water resources is the determination of the amount of water generated on the territory of the country.”
“Some 17 devices were purchased within a project of state investments, 8 automatic measuring devices, which have already been installed on our high-water level rivers and big reservoirs, were bought through the funds raised in various projects to achieve capital transformations in this area,” Karimov said. “This project was implemented by the end of 2020."
Karimov added that the work on the installation of automatic metering devices will continue in the coming years.
“For example, 20 more devices, which will be installed on high-water level rivers and big reservoirs of the country, will be purchased in 2022-2023,” the deputy minister said.
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