The volume of water in Urmia Lake at the end of the previous water year (September 2020), according to the data released by the Iran Water Resources Management Company, has reached 2.73 billion cubic meters, which shows a decrease of 42% compared to the earlier water year.
The current volume of water in the lake is 2 bcm less than the same time of last year, the Energy Ministry’s news website Paven reported.
The decline in the lake’s water is largely due to the lack of precipitation in the last water year, which was one of the driest in the past 50 years.
Last water year ended with only 157.7 mm of rainfall registered in the catchment area of the lake, which was about 160 mm less than the preceding water year.
The water level in the lake is currently 1,270.65 meters, which is 62 centimeters lower than last year’s level.
The Energy Ministry had said the troubled lake would receive 650 million cubic meters of water from Salmas, Zola, Boukan, Aqchai, Shahre-Chai, Mahabad, Aras and Sarouq dams (in West Azarbaijan Province) between September 2020 and March 2021. However, less water was pumped into the lake, which is Iran’s largest inland body of water, as the dams had little water as well.
In addition, the lake lost more water due to high temperature in the hot season, which led to evaporation.
Close to 1.6 billion cubic meters of water usually evaporate from the lake between June and September.
The decline in the water level of the lake has happened while a restoration program has been underway in the past decade, on which over $1 billion have been spent.
Debate over the potential health hazards related to Lake Urmia became a regular feature of the local media since 2013, with those involved in the restoration program pointing to cancer, high blood pressure and respiratory diseases as the main dangers of the drying lake. They believe that if the lake dries up, salt storms will seriously endanger the livelihood of more than six million people living in an area covering 100 km.
Local rural residents and even those as far as Tabriz inhaled salt-laden and polluted air between 2013 and 2015, leading to high blood pressure. The rise in particulate matters in the air posed a grave danger to public health.
Once the second-largest saltwater lake in the Middle East, it attracted birds and bathers to bask in its turquoise waters in northwest Iran. But beginning in the 1970s, nearly three decades of drought and high water demand shriveled the basin, shrinking it by a shocking 80%.
Located between the provinces of East and West Azarbaijan, Lake Urmia is a closed water body fed through 21 permanent and 39 seasonal rivers.
