A year passed since May 1, 2020, when on the territory of Sirdaryo region of Uzbekistan, a breakthrough of the reservoir dam occurred, causing a flood. Buildings, roads, communications were destroyed. More than 60 thousand residents were evacuated in Uzbekistan and similar number in flooded districts of Kazakhstan. According to official data, 6 people died during the incident.

On April 30, at
a briefing, First Deputy Minister of Emergency Situations, Major General Abdulla
Kuldoshev  named several general
factors that led to the collapse  of the Sardoba
dam in Uzbekistan.

According to the General the Ministry …

Iranian Environmentalists Mark
International Day Against Water Transfer

17 April 2021

By the People’s
Campaign to Save the Kind Zagros, supporter of Save
the Tigris Campaign

Iranian
environmentalists annually celebrate the International Day Against Water
Transfer on 17 April, or 28 Favardin, according to the Persian calendar. Water
transfers between watersheds are common practice in Iran. They have been
regarded as one of the most effective ways to reduce water scarcity, as many
Iranian politicians have advocated. Such water scarcity is caused by the
differences in distribution of water resources, population growth, and damage
caused by floods and droughts. The reality, however, is …

On the Criminalization of Civil Society Activists in the Russian Federation

We, the Civil Society Organizations who have attended the 9th International NGO Forum on World Heritage at Risk organized by World Heritage Watch online from 22-24 February 2021, as active and concerned citizens dealing with Natural and Cultural World Heritage properties at different places, would like to bring the following to the attention of the World Heritage Committee: We have been informed about unprecedented pressure on the activists of the non-governmental organization Ecodefense! by the Russian State Party responsible …

The shore of Siberia’s Lake Baikal that has seen the building of most hotels is now covered by algae caused by releasing untreated waste into the water. Every wave brings more algae [Image by: Vitaliy Ryabtsev]

After the closure of the Baikal cellulose-paper industrial complex in 2013, the main cause of pollution for the great Siberian lake became mass tourism. In 2019, the flow of tourists was three to four million per year.

One of the environmental consequences of tourism is the
pollution of the …

“Blue Horse” also known as “Bluecifer” . Source: https://masterok.livejournal.com/2328912.html

In many transboundary basins of the World the lack of joint plans of shared basin management based on the latest environmental and hydrological research prompts riparian countries to unilateral actions for water accumulation and use within their respective boundaries, while ignoring environmental consequences of such practice. The countries often present such projects as voluntary commitments under the Paris Agreement.

Dam is being built across floodplain of Ulz river just in 27 kilometers upstream of the transboundary …

Photos by By Mariam Nikuradze    

Georgian Government has been slow at learning lessons from the failure of Nenskra Hydro, which construction ignited protest of Svan minority population. As Korean K-Water is struggling to get out of the Nenskra project it owns, Turkish ENKA and Norwegian “Clean Energy” initiated similarly damaging project in much more populous Rioni River Valley. this eventually evoked a thunder of popular discintent. Fearing snowballing protest the Georgian government stopped construction and promised to start risk assessments it initially neglected, but people still went to …