Analysis of Infrastructural Developments in the South Caucasus 

The project was commissioned by WWF South Caucasus Program and aimed to collect comprehensive information on ongoing, planned, and existing infrastructural development projects in selected landscapes (PAs, KBAs, and CCAs) from the South Caucasus region covering Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. In frames of the project, PMO team conducted a desk review of existing information available on open sources and obtained from the line ministries and its agencies to identify existing, planned, and ongoing infrastructural development projects in the field of energy, transport, mining, and tourism, get information on the project status and their location (shapefiles). The collected information was processed and filtered by predefined criteria and GIS analysis was performed to identify project locations and proximity with the selected landscapes. At the second stage of the project, the evaluation of social, economic, and environmental impact was performed using pre-defined methodology implying processing of relevant Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) documents and benchmarking (for project without EIAs and ESIAs). As a result, the GIS and Excel database of infrastructural development projects located within the selected landscapes was constructed, containing information on project type, status, location, and anticipated social, economic, and environmental risks, relevant maps were developed and a report of the results was prepared and submitted to the client. 

Project outcomes: 

• GIS and Excel database of infrastructural development projects in selected PAs, KBAs, CCAs from Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia 
• Maps of the identified projects 
• Report of the assessment results.