The main objectives of the meeting were to discuss the availability of Ground Waters (GW) and Surface Waters (SW) in the Kura river basin and the challenges related to rational water use in the municipal and agricultural sectors and the estimated annual volume of water losses in Azerbaijan.

The representatives of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, Department of Hydromet, Department of Environmental Monitoring, State Agency of Water Resources of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, Parliament, Amelioration and Water Economy JSC, AZERSU JSC and Baku State University and the EUWI+ project and the ENI SEIS-II East project attended the meeting.

The meeting took note of the presentation on international best practices on sustainable management of water resources to encourage more efficient use of water in different sectors provided by the International Consultant on Water Supply and Demand Management, Dr. Hubert Lohr.

The national experts provided the detailed information on legal, regulatory, organizational structure, existing monitoring networks and available assessments regarding efficient water use in the municipal and agricultural sectors.

It was recommended that the roadmap will be developed to provide guidance on short-term, mid-term and long-term actions, which are necessary to pave the way for rational water use in Azerbaijan as follows:

·     Water resources inventory as knowledge base for follow-up activities including data requirements needed for a comprehensive inventory.

·     Establishment of causal-chains. Cause-effect relationships have been developed during the Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis (TDA) and will be concretized with the focus of rational water use.

·     Hydrological and economic assessment of losses in the agricultural and municipal water supply. 

·     A concept for assessing groundwater recharge in order to generate a groundwater recharge map

·     Introduction of GIS

·     Establishment of standards for time series to allow for efficient use and exchange of data

·     Introduction of modelling