evidoria

← Back to browse

Good practice Imported

Boyukshor Lake Rehabilitation — Turning an Oil-Contaminated Baku Lake into an Urban Eco-Park

Azerbaijan · Baku · See the Azerbaijan profile · See the Baku profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 58% 40/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

A World Bank- and government-financed rehabilitation of Boyukshor Lake near Baku dredged 2.8 million m³ of contaminated sludge and cut bottom-sediment pollution from 121,000 to 86,000 mg/kg, converting a former Soviet-era industrial dump into urban green space.

~121,000 mg/kg
Bottom-sediment contamination before treatment
~86,000 mg/kg
Bottom-sediment contamination after treatment
2.8 million+ m3
Contaminated sludge dredged
~300 hectares
Lakeshore cleared (phase 1)
Boyukshor Lake Rehabilitation — Turning an Oil-Contaminated Baku Lake into an Urban Eco-Park

Details

Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan / World Bank (IBRD)
Period
2013-2020
Keywords
water and sanitation, land remediation, urban green infrastructure

Context

Baku's Absheron Peninsula holds 200+ lakes covering roughly 3,325 hectares, many severely contaminated by a century of oil extraction and waste discharge; Boyukshor Lake, Azerbaijan's second-largest at about 1,060 hectares, became the flagship rehabilitation site.

Activities

The Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, with Dutch firm Witteveen+Bos and financing from the $100 million Absheron Lakes Cleanup programme (World Bank IBRD $85m, Azerbaijan $15m), cleared roughly 300 hectares of lakeshore, dredged 2.8 million+ m3 of contaminated sludge, and built new sewage lines to stop further discharge.

Results

Post-treatment testing found bottom-sediment contamination in the cleaned section fell from about 121,000 mg/kg to about 86,000 mg/kg, meeting the project's ecological norms; the rehabilitated shoreline was developed into public green space.

Conclusions

The programme's remaining lakes (Khojasan, Lokbatan, Gu, Girmizi) were designated for similar treatment, though public reporting on their completion is less detailed than for Boyukshor.

Implementation
Indicative cost
High (€500k–€5M) — $100 million Absheron Lakes Cleanup programme (World Bank IBRD $85m + Azerbaijan government $15m); phase 1 cost about 99.5 million manat.
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan, Witteveen+Bos engineering

Conditions for success

  • Continued funding for remaining lakes
  • New sewage infrastructure to prevent re-contamination

Do you run this practice? Claim it — verified implementers get a public contact pathway and can propose corrections.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

Similar practices you may find useful