Natural Disaster in Tbilisi City (Riv. Vere Basin) in the Year 2015

During 13-14 June 2015 heavy rainfall in the Riv. Vere basin area and its tributaries caused a drastic increase in the water level and triggered/activated large-scale landslide and debrisflow events. This put the Tskneti-Samadlo and Tsnketi-Akhal- daba motorways out of order. Residential buildings and miscellaneous infrastructural facilities, buildings and structures and Tbilisi Zoo located at the low elevations in the Riv. Vere Gorge were significantly damaged or/and totally destroyed. 23 persons died during the disaster. This study presents the results on an analysis of the landslides/ debrisflows in the riv. Vere catchment and discusses main triggering factors of natural disaster, statistics for the prior period, and geodynamic situation of Akhaldaba “big” landslide developed at the Tskneti-Samadlo road section. It is given recommendations for future activities to reduce landslide/debrisflow hazard in this catchment.

Fresh Groundwater Resources in Georgia and Management Problems

As it is known fresh water represents conditioned factor for human body’s life. That’s why the superiority of drinking water is recognized as human body’s priority according to the international declarations. World is experiencing deficit of quality water. Natural Disasters caused by the pollution of the fresh ground water is also very painful and acute, because it needed more time, more material and financial means for the liquidation of their results, and what the most important practically is, it is impossible to renew the initial natural conditions completely. All these conditions that the rational use of fresh ground water passed by the interests of separate countries and became worldwide, international problem-fresh water became as considerable raw material for the worlds import and export. Future prognosis is disturbing—according to the data of UN for 2025 year 2/3 of world population will be under the water deficit conditions. Above-mentioned shows how important fresh water is for humanity. Below we present briefly review about the situation of fresh ground water resources and the analysis of the problems in transboundary artesian basins of Georgia.

Catastrophic Debrisflow in Dariali (Georgia) in the Year 2014

River Tergi, Aragvi and Asa-Arghuni, which occupy significant area of mountainous region of central Caucasus, by its geographic location, strategic meaning, peculiarities of natural landscape and infrastructural objects (Trans-Caucasian highway, gas pipeline, water supply of the capital, Gudauri ski-mountainous complex) minerals, historic-ethnographic monuments, opportunities for development of mountainous tourism and mountaineering, where more important engineering projects are being planned;all the above give perspective of development of economic base, employment of the population and restoration of motivated villages, more over that the major part of their perimeter represents state border. At the same time, extremely complex relief, landscape-climatic conditions and sensitive geologic environment have been always defining peculiarities of settlement of population and agricultural activities and determining landscape-ecologic balance of geographic environment. However, whereas amount of land for optimal adaptation is extremely limited, its irregular adaptation causes critical degradation-devastation of lands. Consequently, this causes development of scaled and diverse geologic processes (land-slides, debrisflow, erosion, etc.), which have been complicated anyway and are followed by enormous material loss, forcing thousands of people to leave their homes, emptying if tens of villages and human sacrifice. The article considers conditions of development of a catastrophic debrisflow, which occurred in Dariali in the year 2014 and its negative consequences.

Geological Hazards Occurred on the Road Connecting Vashlijvari-Lisi (M. Machavariani Street) in Tbilisi

The capital of Georgia—Tbilisi has a very convenient location and is a node of the transit corridor. Along with natural-geological conditions, its complexity is due to the rapid demographic growth of the city in a highly “sensitive” area of the geological environment and the pressure of high engineering and agricultural activities. In Tbilisi, it is observed almost all types of geological hazards, including landslide-gravitational, suffosion, debris/mudflows, river bank erosion and inundation were caused by groundwater. These hazards cause high damages to the residential houses and other infrastructure facilities. Most importantly and most tragically is that these kind of negative geological events are often accompanied by human casualties. The study discusses the geological processes developed in March 2021 in the corridor of the Vashlijvari-Lisi road (Machavariani Street). The information obtained from the study, reflects the triggering factors of the geological hazards, also damages caused by them, and provides recommendations for short-term and long-term protective measures that should ensure the sustainable operation of the road and other infrastructure facilities.