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This Regional Water Quality Monitoring Programme has been developed as part of the project “Caspian Water Quality Monitoring and Action Plan for Areas of Pollution Concern’s (Caspian MAP)”. This project has been financed by the Tacis Programme of the European Union (EU) which amongst others promotes regional co-operation on environmental protection. On of the main objectives of the Caspian MAP is to support the Caspian Environment Programme (CEP), which is a partnership between the five littoral states - Azerbaijan, Islamic Republic of Iran, Kazakhstan, Russian Federation and Turkmenistan, and International Partners like EU, UNDP, UNEP, and the World Bank. The CEP's mission is to assist the Caspian littoral states to achieve the goal of environmentally sustainable development and management of the Caspian environment for the sake of long-term benefit for the Caspian inhabitants.

The Regional Pollution Action Plan for the Caspian Sea (RPAP), has been prepared as part of the project “Caspian Water Quality Monitoring and Action Plan for Areas of Pollution Concern’s (hereafter: Caspian MAP)”. The project is financed by the Tacis Programme of the European Union (EU), which has as one of its objectives the promotion of regional co-operation on environmental protection. The overall objective of the Caspian MAP is to achieve improved quality of the marine and coastal environment of the Caspian Sea. In particular, the RPAP (current Report) provides recommendations to regional strategies for pollution reduction, with a focus on the identified Areas of Pollution Concern. The Caspian MAP also developed a proposal for a Regional Water Quality Monitoring Program.

Toxicity tests are commonly used as a tool to determine the standards of water quality for chemicals and to discover appropriate organisms as bioindicators in toxicological studies, and also could be used as an essential tool for evaluation of the pollutant effects in aquatic ecosystems. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the sensitivity of two Caspian fish species, Caspian trout as an endangered species and Caspian Kutum using the static acute toxicity in response to nonylphenol, which is widely discharged into the Caspian Sea environment.

In addition, Caspian trout was approximately 6 times more sensitive than Caspian Kutum. Nonylphenol was reflected to be "highly toxic" to Caspian trout and "moderately toxic" to Caspian Kutum. The results could be considered in preparing plans for conservation and restocking management of Caspian Kutum and the endangered Caspian trout.