Integrated Environmental Monitoring Model as a Tool Environmental Excellence in Caspian
Authors: Askerov Faig , Abbasova Afag , Gahramanova Mehriban 
Published: July 2010

BP Azerbaijan has developed an integrated ecological monitoring programme (IEMP) for all its upstream activities in Azerbaijan, which include Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli and Shah Deniz Contract Areas located in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea, as well as near-shore and onshore areas located nearby the Sangachal onshore terminal. The Integrated Environmental Monitoring Program (IEMP) optimizes a balance between BP's Azerbaijan operations and protecting the environmentally sensitive Caspian Sea and Caucasus area. The IEMP is unique in that it is designed to efficiently and cost-effectively evaluate the effects of operational outputs (emissions, discharges, and spills) against environmental changes to provide "early warning" of potentially adverse impacts on the environment.

Before 2004, separate monitoring surveys for various aspects of the onshore (terrestrial, faunal and floral, hydrology, ground and surface water monitoring and studies), near-shore (benthic, water, fish and sea grass monitoring, mussel cages study), and offshore (regional and local benthic and plankton surveys) BP Azerbaijan operational areas were resulting in duplication of effort, and a lack of standardization that resulted in an inability to compare data. It was missing a link between ambient monitoring and operations monitoring, thus monitoring was not cost-effective, and was not yielding sufficiently reliable results to feed back to an environmental management system. Key components that were developed to enable this integration were: 1. A standardized core of monitoring procedures, 2. A central database with monitoring data is available for sharing within BP Azerbaijan and externally through GIS, 3. Coordination among the diverse aspects of ambient and operations monitoring around BP Azerbaijan operational areas.

The IEMP's unique holistic view of environmental monitoring maximizes the cost: benefit ratio by standardizing, coordinating, and sharing information among diverse monitoring projects, and allows for a more powerful, synergistic interpretation of results, and thereby more informed management decisions to correct environmental problems. Since 2004, the IEMP had completed a total of 57 monitoring studies over five years including 28 offshore, 9 near shore and 18 onshore surveys. IEMP is implemented with support of local and international experts based on the long-term Strategy and annual monitoring programs approved by external panel including regulator - the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic, the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences.

The IEMP is unique in that it seeks to identify patterns and problems before the compliance standards are exceeded and enable management actions to respond to environmental change in a rapid and informed manner. This allows a level of environmental protection that is not possible when environmental monitoring is carried out with a non-integrated, system of individual monitoring projects. The resulting excellence in environmentally sound operations is beneficial to both the BP brand and to Azerbaijan.