Impacts on Human Activity
Population and economic activities in the Caspian are not only suffering from the 2,5 meter rise of the Caspian Sea water level in 1979-1995. In addition to the damage of coastal residential houses and industrial, transport or communication infrastructure caused by that, the human activities in coastal areas around the Caspian are also affected by desertification

Desertification affects economic activities by

• Reducing arable land by oversanding
• Decreasing harvest by salinisation
• Oversanding of residential houses
• Oversanding of technical infrastructure, pipelines, roads and railways, industrial areas.

Socio-Economic Regional Analysis
These direct impacts will influence different socio-economic values regarding demography, poverty, health, living conditions, culture and education. The desertification group therefore started to investigate socio-economic criteria. The main objective is to describe the current socio-economic situation in the Caspian and to recommend measures to the Caspian governments that will help improve the situation.

The inventory started in late 2000. The data are focused on the four key areas demography, economy, socio-economical structure and technical infrastructure with 60 different criteria, including

• Population number 2000, 1995, 1989
• Population density 2000
• Number of males 2000, 1995, 1989
• Number of females 2000, 1995, 1989
• Life expectancy 2000
• Influxed and moved people 2000, 1995, 1989
• GDP 2000 (in local currency and in US Dollars) 2000
• Industrial production (percentage of GDP) 2000
• Agricultural production (percentage of GDP) 2000
• Fishery production (percentage of GDP) 2000
• Income of households 2000
• Health data 2000, 1995, 1989
• Water supply 2000, 1995, 1989
• Water consumption 2000, 1995, 1989
• Electricity consumption 2000, 1995, 1989.

The sources for those data are state statistical information institutions on ministerial or local level. The baseline collection was completed in July 2001. Many data are not yet available since the recording of data according to western oriented statistical requirements has only just started. Statistical data for district level are available only since the recent years under the transformation of the four previous Soviet Union republics. Therefore data are generally scarce. Difficulties appeared also in receiving time rows for some criteria.

Caspian Socio-Economic Database
A Socio-Economic Database in MS Access format has been developed at the Ashgabad centre. The centre is therefore best qualified for a future collection of socio-economic data of the Caspian region. Such data will form an important baseline information not only for desertification issues, but for many decisions related to coastal zone planning. The database will be shared at the end of 2001 with all five littoral countries. The Database is for read-only: yearly updates are to be done in the countries and sent to the Ashgabad centre.

Caspian Socio-Economic Region
These criteria have to be gathered for the Caspian socio-economic region consisting of 74 Caspian districts (Azerbaijan: 14, Russian Federation 14, Kazakhstan: 14, Turkmenistan: 4, and Islamic Republic of Iran (28). The following map shows all Caspian districts adjacent to the coast: