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Data sources:

Data was provided from National Environmental Monitoring Department of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources under the ENI SEIS II East project activities

Note: Distribution of river monitoring sites to BOD5 (left) and ammonium concentration (right) classes in different regions in Azerbaijan, based on the average of annual mean concentrations for 2016-2017. The number of monitoring sites per region is given in parenthesis.

The class system is the same as the one used in the EEA indicator WAT 002-EEA indicator WAT 002- Oxygen consuming substances European rivers. See the indicator specification section there for further information.

All river sites had current average BOD below 3 mg O2/l. This is the strictest criterion (for salmonid fish) set by the EU Directive 78/659/EEC. The national maximum allowable concentration is 6 mg O2/l. The Gazakh-Ganja region had the highest proportion of sites with BOD in the class 1.4-2 mg O2/l.

The current ammonium concentration conditions were somewhat poorer than for BOD, with 15% of the sites above 0.2 mg NH4-N/l. However, the national maximum allowable concentration (0.4 mg NH4-N/l) was not exceeded at any of the sites. Comparing to the recommended levels in the EU Directive 78/659/EEC (cyprinid fish: 0.16 mg NH4-N/l; salmonid fish: 0.03 NH4-N/l), 39% of the sites had average concentration above the upper threshold, and no sites were below the lower threshold. The sites with the highest concentrations were found in the Shirvan, Gazakh-Ganja and Lankaran-Astara regions. In Guba-Khachmaz no sites had ammonium concentration above 0.16 mg NH4-N/l.