Urmia Lake’s water level is currently 1,270 meters, down 53 centimeters compared to last year’s level, the head of Integrated Water Resources Management Department at the Energy Ministry said.
“The lake has received 500 million cubic meters of water from eight dams in West Azarbaijan Province between September 2021 and May 2022. However, high evaporation rate, declining precipitation and severe drought in Iran have adversely affected the water level in Iran’s largest inland body of water,” Kiasat Amirian was also quoted as saying by ILNA.
At present, the lake holds 2.7 billion cubic meters of water, which is 50% lower compared to 2019 when it stored 5 bcm. The area of Urmia Lake has dwindled by 300 square kilometers to 3,000 sq. km., he added.
According to the official, the drought, which is unprecedented in the past 50 years, has led to a 50% reduction in water inflow from dams into the lake that is Iran’s largest inland body of water.
Amirian said close to 1 billion cubic meters of water usually evaporate from the lake between June and September.
Located between the provinces of East and West Azarbaijan, the lake is a closed water body fed through 21 permanent and 39 seasonal rivers.
Its water started dwindling 10 years ago due to a variety of factors, including the construction of a 15-km causeway to shorten travel time between Urmia and Tabriz cities and the construction of several dams that have choked off water supply from the mountains on both sides of the lake.
Restoration Program
In 2013, a project called Urmia Lake Restoration Program was launched to stabilize the lake’s water level. About $1 billion have been spent so far to restore the lake.
“One of the measures is the transfer of 44 million cubic meters of water from Kanisib Dam to the lake, which will be launched soon,” he said.
“Another project is to transfer 600 million cubic meters of water from Zab River. The project has registered 93% progress and efforts are being made to complete it by the end of the current Iranian year [March 20, 2023].”
The official said the project comprises the excavation of a 17-km canal and a 37-km tunnel.
“Tabriz and Urmia wastewater plants are also expected to release treated water into the lake. The projects are more than 90% complete and over 100 million cubic meters of treated wastewater from both plants will enter the lake by the end of summer,” he said.
An estimated 60 million cubic meters of reclaimed wastewater enter Urmia Lake every year, part of which is from treatment plants in Naqadeh, Mahabad, Miandoab, Salmas and Boukan in the northwestern province.
“As long as old paradigms, including dam building and inter-basin transfers to far-flung regions, are not replaced with new and workable methods like integrated water resources management [IWRM], shortages of this vital resource will get worse before getting better,” he warned.
IWRM promotes the coordinated development and management of water, land and related resources to maximize economic and social welfare in an equitable manner without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems.
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 since the beginning of the 1970s, nearly three decades of drought and high water demand have shriveled the basin, shrinking it by a shocking 80%.
The lake supports unique biodiversity and its wetlands have been declared a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.
Biosphere reserves are areas comprising terrestrial, marine and coastal ecosystems. Each reserve promotes solutions reconciling the conservation of biodiversity with its sustainable use.
