Inter-Basin Water Transfer to Revive Lake Urmia Not Viable

Surveys conducted by foreign research centers in collaboration with domestic firms have shown that diverting water from the Caspian Sea in the north to Lake Urmia, Iran's largest salt lake in West Azarbaijan Province, cannot help revive the troubled inland water body, operations manager at Iran Water Resources Management Company said.
“A scheme to transfer 1 billion cubic meters of water was proposed to help the troubled lake replenish in 2011 as its sources of renewable water had decreased drastically at the time,” Ghazaal Jafari was quoted as saying by IRNA.
Studies by prominent international organizations, namely the US Irrigation Association and Akvaplan-niva, a daughter company of the Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA), indicated that inter-basin initiatives will never yield desired results because of differences in the geochemical, ecological and biological qualities of the two water bodies, she added.