The next meeting of the Academic Council was chaired by Dr. Zakir Eminov, General Director of the Institute of Geography named after Academician H. Aliyev of the Ministry of Science and Education of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
At the meeting, Dr. Peigam Gafari made a report within the framework of the CRIPTIC project (“Cleaning Riverine Plastic from a Transboundary Inflow to the Caspian”). It was reported that the Norwegian-Azerbaijani CRIPTIC project is financed by the environmental fund Handelens Miljøfund, and its partners from the Azerbaijani side are the Azerbaijan Geographical Society, AR MSE. Institute of Geography, Caspian Integrated Research Network (KASPISNET), Union of Water Specialists, Sukanal Research and Design Institute of Azersu JSC. Azerkosmos and the American company ESRI, a global giant in the field of GIS, have also joined in activities towards the most efficient implementation of the project. P. Jafari, project manager from the Norwegian side, said that the main goal is to model and collect digital methods for reducing plastic waste in the Caspian Sea with the integrated use of modern satellites, unmanned observations, programming languages, machine learning, artificial intelligence on a geographic information technology platform (GIS) and drew attention to the fact that Azerbaijani specialists are being taught this experience. The speaker emphasized that an international seminar was organized on cleaning up the shores of the Caspian Sea from plastic waste in August 2021 and 2022, within the framework of the project, and last year in a pilot area on the coast of the Caspian Sea, Neftchala, with the main sponsorship of bp and various universities, conducted more than fifteen public and field studies with the participation of representatives of a private organization. Participants cleared the territory of plastic waste after conducting a drone survey with a strip of 1200 m long and 140 m wide in the pilot area, and also registered online each piece of plastic waste collected using special software. At the end of his speech, the speaker indicated that such a study would be repeated on November 6, and invited everyone to take part in the event, which will be held in the Neftchala region. Head of the "CRIPTIC" project for Azerbaijan, Senior Researcher of the Department of Caspian Sea Level Problems of the Institute of Geography, Ph.D. Elnur Safarov said that the number of partners participating in the project is increasing: when the work was started, there were 5 of them, and now this number has already exceeded 15. Azinko Development and Tamiz Shahar organizations are also actively involved in this work. Special trainings were organized for young people participating in the project, they were taught modern methods, building models using GIS and other skills. These lessons will serve as a good base for young people to further their education or build a career in the technical field in the future. Students selected for their knowledge and skills are then more actively involved in project collaboration. Co-Chairman of the AGS, the lead organization of the project, Ph.D. Mr. Mirnukh Ismayilov spoke about the work that needs to be done to clean up the Caspian coastal areas from waste, and emphasized the priority of using modeling methods to improve management in this area. Said Safarov, project participant, head of the department of the Institute of Geography, Doctor of Geography, highly appreciated the role of the CRIPTIC project, talking about the importance of cleaning up the Caspian Sea from plastic waste.