Water security in the South Caucasus: meeting the challenges for Azerbaijan

The notion of water security has emerged as a paradigm to explain the contribution of water-related issues in the wider political and development agenda. UN Water outlines water security as the capacity of a population to safeguard sustainable access to adequate quantities of acceptable quality water for sustaining livelihoods, human well-being, and socioeconomic development, for ensuring protection against water-borne pollution and water-related disasters, and for preserving ecosystems in a climate of peace and political stability. When it comes to South Caucasus, the thirty-year conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the region of Karabakh equally encompasses a water security dimension. It is worth noting that about 62% of the total water resources of the South Caucasus belong to Georgia, 28% to Armenia and 10% to Azerbaijan. As a matter of fact, the protracted dispute over water resources and environmental damages caused during and after the conflict have been relevant and still unresolved factors. Moreover, in spite of most of the literature on the Karabakh wars focusing exclusively on ethnic, territorial and confrontational aspects, water represents a cross-cutting factor connected to peace and stability in the region as well. At the same time, water security remains a challenging factor especially for Azerbaijan, which geographically speaking finds itself in the most unfavorable position with respect to the other two South Caucasian States.