Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Oct. 30
By Huseyn Hasanov - Trend:
Turkmenistan's parliament has ratified an agreement on cooperation in the hydrometeorology surveys of the Caspian Sea.
Turkmen government said that the agreement was signed in Astrakhan in September 2014 during the fourth summit of the presidents of the Caspian states, which was attended by the heads of all the five Caspian countries - Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.
Cooperation as part of this agreement is aimed at creating and developing an integrated regional system for obtaining and exchanging data on the status of the Caspian Sea with a view of ensuring the safety of economic activity in the sea's waters.
Participants of the agreement have agreed to ensure functioning and development of national monitoring networks, apply internationally recognized standards of the World Meteorological Organization and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO in relation to methods of observing hydrometeorological parameters.
Their responsibilities will also include coordination of reference frames and selection of benchmarks, establishing other fundamental rights, integrating national guidelines of hydrometeorological activity at offshore and onshore stations and posts.
The sides will also establish the coordinated requirements for the national systems of collecting, storing and disseminating the information on the status of the Caspian Sea, work out a unified geographic information system on the status of the Caspian Sea; coordinate measures of training and raising the staff's skills in the field of hydrometeorology of the Caspian Sea and others.
The natural resources of the Caspian Sea include more than 500 species of plants and 854 species of fish, including some 90 percent of the world reserves of sturgeon. The predicted hydrocarbon reserves are estimated at 18 billion tons of equivalent fuel (the proven reserves - up to four billion tons).
Edited by CN