changes in abundance and biomass of cyanobacteria have been studied in the southern part of the caspian sea (the stretch between tonekabon and amirabad) in four seasons (spring, summer, autumn, winter) in which samples were taken from five depths of 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 meters in the stations of tonekabon, noushahr, babolsar and amirabad. samples were fixed in formalin (2-2.5%) before transfer...

INTRODUCTION The sturgeons of the Caspian Sea are considered highly valuable species. The Caspian Sea has traditionally been regarded as the sea of sturgeon since it produces more than 90 percent of the world’s caviar. Despite a remarkable decline of sturgeon numbers over recent years, the Caspian Sea still continues to be of considerable importance in sturgeon fisheries. In 1997, the global la...

* The author is employed at the United Nations Environment Programme’s Regional Office for Europe. The paper is presented by the author in her personal capacity, however, and opinions expressed in this paper should be attributed to the author. They are not meant to represent the positions or opinions of UNEP or the State Parties to the Framework Convention on the Protection of the Marine Enviro...

S U M M A R Y The Rudbar-Tarom earthquake of 1990 June 20 (M0 = 1.4 × 1027 dyn cm), the largest one in Iran over the past 35 yr, was accompanied by a small tsunami in the Caspian Sea, which produced run-ups of up to 2 m, and inundations of 1 km, reaffirming the existence of tsunami hazard along the Caspian shoreline, as suggested by historical reports. We present the results of a field survey, ...

The Caspian Sea is heavily polluted due to industrial and agricultural effluents as well as extraction of oil and gas reserves. Microbial communities can influence the fate of contaminants and nutrients. However, insight into the microbial ecology of the Caspian Sea significantly lags behind other marine systems. Here we describe microbial biomass, diversity and composition in sediments collect...

US Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, 3200 Jefferson Way, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA b Fenner School of Environment and Society, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-3114, USA d School of Forest Resources, University of Washington, ...

By manifesting the response of land to human activity and impacts, degradation of forestland indicates the locations where society is in conflict with sustaining the forest environment. The analysis of land degradation in various land-use/cover patterns of Russia’s vast forest zone (about 1050 million ha, or 63% of the country) clearly demonstrates two human-induced problems, inappropriate tech...

Iran’s security is affected by a broad region that includes the Caspian Basin, Central Asia, Afghanistan, the Persian Gulf states, Pakistan, Turkey, and the Middle East. However, an increased focus on the countries of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), as well as Iraq, on the one hand, and with members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) (including Yemen) on the other, provides a na...