New Targets Needed to Remediate Urmia Lake

In an ongoing joint scientific study, hydrologists from Iran and the US have set new objectives to revive the troubled Urmia Lake straddling the provinces of East and West Azarbaijan -- one of the world's largest saline lakes, an assistant professor at Tehran’s Tarbiat Modares University said.
"Iranian researchers and Utah State University have synthesized 40 years of available experimental, field, satellite, and model data for Lake Urmia to define new restoration objectives not only to lower salinity, sustain Artemia and greater flamingo populations, reduce lakebed dust but also to improve recreational access from resort beaches,” Somayeh Sima was quoted as saying by IRNA. 
The current government-sponsored restoration program (cost $1 billion) underway since 2013 has focused on raising the lake’s water level to an ecological target of 1274.1 meters.