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Data sources: 

Data was provided by National Environmental Agency of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture under the ENI SEIS II East project activities

Note: Distribution of groundwater monitoring sites to nitrate concentration classes in eastern and western Georgia, based on average of the 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 003 - Nutrients in freshwater in Europe. See the indicator specification section there for further information. 

The average phosphate and nitrate concentrations at the river sites in 2016-2018 never exceeded the national maximum permissible concentrations (10.2 mg NO3-N/l for cyprinid waters, 9.0 mg NO3-N/l for salmonid waters and 1.1 mg P/l). These thresholds are, however, very high, and do not necessarily reflect the ecological conditions of the water bodies. For phosphate the concentrations were higher in the Caspian Sea basin, with 91% of the river sites having phosphate concentrations above 0.1 mg P/l, which is considered sufficiently high to cause eutrophication. Also for nitrate the concentrations were higher in the Caspian Sea basin, but overall nitrate concentrations were relatively low.

Average groundwater nitrate concentrations for 2016-2017 were generally low and were all far below the national threshold (50 mg NO3/l), which is a more reasonable threshold for groundwater, where the main concern is human consumption (the EU Drinking Water Directive 98/83/EC sets the maximum allowable concentration for nitrate to 50 mg NO3/l). All except one monitoring site had average concentration above 10 mg NO3/l. Like for rivers, the nitrate concentrations in groundwater were generally lower in western Georgia. Here all monitoring sites were below 1 mg NO3/l. The lower concentrations in the west may be due to less agriculture than in the east.