Caspian Sea desiccation: Implications and policy options for Azerbaijan

Introduction

People sometimes imagine climate change as a problem for other places, other communities, other futures, not as something unfolding before us. Yet in the heart of Eurasia, the Caspian Sea, long seen as a bridge between Europe and Asia, is shrinking in silence. Its desiccation has become one of the paradoxes of the modern climate era. While seas and oceans rise across the world, the planet’s largest enclosed body of water is retreating.1 Climate projections indicate that the Caspian Sea could decline by 8–20 meters by the end of the century as evaporation continues to outpace inflow across the basin. At these levels, the northern Caspian basin would dry out completely and the Sea’s overall surface area would shrink dramatically.2 For decades the five littoral states focused on drawing borders, calculating energy reserves, and negotiating access, but they overlooked the most basic resource, the water itself. Years of legal disputes over seabed division, competition for hydrocarbon deposits, and the failure to establish an effective cooperative framework illustrate how geopolitical priorities repeatedly overshadowed ecological responsibility.3 As the shoreline pulls back, it becomes clear that diplomacy without action cannot secure the basin. The crisis facing the Caspian is environmental and civilizational. Domestic social and policy implications The retreat of the Caspian Sea is no longer an abstract projection. It is already reshaping Azerbaijan’s coastline in visible and costly ways. Along Baku’s waterfront, the shoreline continues to pull back, while the Port of Alat increasingly depends on continuous dredging, reinforcement, and redesign to maintain the depth required for shipping. These changes raise logistical costs, slow operations, and place growing pressure on port management and coastal infrastructure.4 Environmental degradation adds a deeper layer of domestic strain. As the waterline recedes, long-buried Soviet era industrial debris and oil residues are exposed to the air. Toxic dust is carried into populated areas across the Absheron Peninsula, increasingly burdening public health in Azerbaijan’s economic and demographic core. Doctors are already reporting higher rates of respiratory illness in districts nearest the exposed seabed.5 This pattern echoes the Aral Sea catastrophe, where exposed seabed sediments created toxic dust with long-term health and agricultural impacts. The ecological consequences are equally severe. Shrinking shallow zones have disrupted fisheries and undermined local livelihoods along Azerbaijan’s coast. Humbatova shows that rapid changes in salinity, concentrated pollution, and unstable shorelines are degrading coastal landscapes and marine resources.6 Industrial discharge, agricultural runoff, and untreated wastewater entering the Kura, Araz, and other rivers frequently exceed permissible