The volume of water that flowed into the beleaguered Lake Urmia in the last water year (September 2014 –2015) was one of the lowest on record, according to a senior water official. “A total of 701 million cubic meters of water flowed into the lake during the period, which is about one-fifth of the long-term average inflow,” Kioumars Daneshjou, head of West Azarbaijan Water Authority, told IRNA. The long-term average of Lake Urmia inflow is 3.1 billion cubic meters. Inflow into the lake has been of the descending order for over two decades. “The lake’s water has dropped 30 cm every year over the past 20 years,” Daneshjou added. Since 2013, the Urmia Lake Restoration Program, headed by Isa Kalantari, environmental advisor to First Vice President Es’haq Jahangiri and a former agriculture minister, has been working hard to reduce water consumption in agriculture and increase the lake’s inflow.
