**3.10 Kura River basin: sustainable sturgeon**

The Kura River basin (**Figure 12**) has been poorly managed over time [29]. Climate change has shifted the timing of melting snow and the baseflow in the Kura River. But the over extraction of groundwater for industrial and agricultural use has led to an adversely impacted fish habitat, and sturgeon reproduction has diminished over the past half century.

Environmental flows are needed to find a sustainable solution to meet the demands of an important part of the Caspian Sea economy, namely, black caviar. A key factor is the minimum baseflow required to maintain sediment transport and fish habitat. Pools and riffles are fluvial features formed by the transport of coarsegrained sediment: sand and gravel. If channel-forming flows are disrupted with too little runoff, pools will fill with aggraded sand. This problem was further exasperated by industrial harvesting river beds to obtain well-sorted aggregate for road construction. The damage primarily occurred under the soviet era management of the region. Today attempts are made to bring the watershed back to the environmental flows needed to support a sturgeon fishery. This is a recognition by the Azerbaijan officials that valley groundwater is not unlimited and that competing demands of industrial and agricultural interests must include riverine habitat to support fish.

#### **Figure 11.**

*Illustration of large valley groundwater flow paths like what occurs in the Lower Minnesota River Valley [1]. Source: USGS webpage.* 

*Location of the Kura River basin west of the Caspian Sea [29]. Source: Abbasov PowerPoint.* 

*Sustainability of Human, Plant, and Aquatic Life: A Theoretical Discussion from Recharge… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.86171* 
