The Caspian Region includes the Caspian Sea and five littoral states: Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Russian. 40% of the Caspian coastal zone is arid, 69% of this territory undergone desertification according to international reports. Among the reasons are soil erosion caused by water, wind and irrigation, the salinization of soil, intense bioresources usage, and soil pollution due to oil extraction and production. Desertification is a serious problem, at global, national and local scales. It is important to know what should be sustained or developed in order to protect land from desertification. The generalization of data over desertification processes in Caspian countries, studying the dynamics of this process in space and time could help facilitate measures to counter regional desertification. To understand Caspian Region coastal desertification phenomenon, vegetation cover satellite images for the years 1982 – 2006 were investigated to give map vegetation changes over time. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data for this study was derived from the Global Inventory Modeling and Mapping Studies (GIMMS) dataset, with the spatial resolution of 8 km. A coastal strip 160 km from the coast, divided by countries, was investigated. Theanalyses were focused on extent and severity of vegetation cover degradation, and possible causes such as landscape, land use history and culture, climatic changes and policies. The aim was to address questions related to desertification phenomenon, by focusing on Caspian Region time-series of vegetation cover data and investigation patterns of desertification in the region. In this study evidence of land degradation in the Caspian Region countries was found to occur on local scales or sub-national scales rather than across the regional as a whole. Changes in vegetation cover revealed by AVHRR NDVI appeared to be reversible in character and were dependent on the climate conditions, and anthropogenic impact in approximately equal proportions.

The Caspian region hydrocarbons are important for international energy security. Producer, consumer and transit countries, albeit for different reasons, try to get a share of these new resources. The opening up of the Region has presented Turkey with a new set of opportunities. In this thesis the positions of all the countries involved are examined. Special attention is given to Turkish policies towards the region. In conclusion the geopolitical environment emerged around the hydrocarbon resources and pipelines is evaluated. It will be seen that this environment puts Turkey in a very favorable position and Turkey is now a player in the international energy game despie the fact that it has almost no hydrocarbon resources.

Caspian region&#039 / s hydrocarbon deposits constitute one of the significant reserves in the world. This has caused a competition among state and non-state actors in exploiting these resources since 19th century. After the Soviet demise, the newly independent states embraced the economic gains made possible with the existence of these reserves. However oil production may have negative implications on environment, ecological balance and biodiversity if carried out in an uncontrolled manner. This study aims to identify these negative impacts and measures taken to control this process. Measures taken on national, regional and international levels are analyzed to find out the extent of their effectiveness in protecting the environment during oil operations. National legal frameworks of each littoral state, impacts of civil society organizations, regional and international legal frameworks and efforts of international organizations are evaluated. Since most of these improvements are relatively new with no viable outcome at hand, the process rather than the results is focused on. The application of time, holism and action-orientation parameters to these improvements to find out the environmental effectiveness of each shows that there is a preliminary burgeoning awareness in matters of environmental protection yielding to more effective efforts than before. Yet the economic gains remain too significant a temptation for the states in the region to be sacrificed. In the cases where measures taken to protect the environment undermine these economic gains, environmental effectiveness is forsaken.

This thesis focuses on the discussion of the diversifying natural gas imports into the European Union and the role played by the Caspian region in this respect. The aim of the thesis is to describe the European Union's energy policy in the natural gas sector and to analyze the role of Caspian natural gas and the project of the Southern Gas Corridor. The question of relevance of the Caspian natural gas for strengthening the European Union's energy security comes along at the right time in the current debate on the further development of climate and energy policy. The policy, along with the draft framework for the creation of the Energy Union of 2015, integrates previously parallel European policies related to fight against climate change, energy security, internal energy market and external energy relations with third countries. The thesis is based on the hypothesis that the Caspian region is an alternative resource region capable of providing a diversification of natural gas imports to the European Union. The basic research questions are the following; "Is the European Union capable of influencing the conditions under which Caspian gas will be transported to Europe?" and "Is the Southern Gas Corridor capable of meeting the expectations of its planned volume of 60-120 billion cubic meters of natural...

Under the current intensive development of the world economy, there is a significant increase in integration of strategic sectors in countries towards the regional and international networks. Therefore, the potential of pipeline transport begins to take special foreign economic and geopolitical importance. The current status and development of this field is the object of an increased interest of all parties that are involved in the transport of raw materials. The more trades there are with oil and gas, the more issues related to its transport are occurred which all parties involved in the transport system faced to deal with. In the context of rapidly developing interconnection of global economies on regional level along with its undeniable reflection on international situation, it makes the functioning of already existing system of pipelines and realization of new projects related to construction of pipelines, with issues of economic, ecological and technical character that play an important role in delivering strategic energy products to world markets. At the same time the strong competition for the construction of pipeline facilities increases its geopolitical significance.