The rivers of Azerbaijan are the preferred spawning grounds for the valuable sturgeon fish of the Caspian Sea, which contains over 90% of the world’s sturgeon population. European sturgeon and Russian sturgeon are the most valuable representatives and only source for black caviar. These species migrate to the downstream part of the Kura River to spawn. Intensive water withdrawals in many rivers of the region have led to significant changes in habitats of sturgeons. To protect fish habitats, we developed a method to set environmental flows for these rivers. (Abbasov and Smakhtin, 2009; Abbasov, 2011). This method has been implemented in some rivers, considerably improving habitats of migrating fish. However, setting of environmental flows is not a complete task. In many places along the rivers farmers use big pumping pipes that suck young fishes into the irrigation fields. This causes direct death for all the fishes sucked by pipes. The proposed project has a goal to establish on the inlets of withdrawal pipes special equipment that will prevent young fish to enter into pipes. We developed special equipment that will be constructed on inlets of water pumping pipes. Construction of these devices will considerably improve habitat conditions for sturgeon populations in the Caspian Sea.

Because the young fish species provide future existence for the sturgeon populations, their protection is essential to maintaining sustainable development in the Caspian region. Making a pilot project, we believe that many sides will be interested to implement similar actions in the region. We believe that this project will be a very good case for national and regional institutions to carry out similar projects.

Through the history, sturgeons was main source of food and income for the local communities. Therefore, local communities are very interested to improve situation around sturgeons. Therefore, we are going to involve local communities to this project as well. Because the local communities are the main water users, we believe they will be interested to establish similar devices on their withdrawal pipes. To achieve this, we are going to conduct broad awareness activities. The proposed project intends partially and, in the future completely to solve one of the main issues that concern Caspian sturgeons.