Lithology of groundwater in Lake Urmia

Hi everyone,
since my last post I have a major break through in my thesis. So I will try to share some of them with you in near future. No I am going through for clearing some issues about groundwater flow.
Now I am sharing a map which can be helpful for those whom want to get an idea about the Lithology of lake Urmia.

Interaction of Coastal aquifer and Lake Urmia

Hey guys.

As I discussed previously, I am a true believer of  existence of interaction between coastal aquifer and Lake Urmia water level. Many authorities and politicians refuse to accept the theory and there are some research articles based on rejection of existence of such an interaction.

Recently I used to publish a conference paper (ASCE, EWRI 2015) about the interaction of water level in some random coastal aquifers in West coast of the Lake Urmia basin and water level in the Lake itself. I used a soft computational method named "Decision Tree" to manipulate my model. It is based on Entropy and probability. Evidence and results of this model are in agreement with a theory of existence of such interaction in Coastal aquifer.

Fig. 1 shows the schematic relation between lake and coastal aquifer which I believe that exist in the hydrological process. In general in closed basin lakes, such interaction is one of the main hydrological variables that should be considered and studied carefully.

Fig. 1. Schematic of interaction of coastal aquifer and Lake Urmia in balance

So I used to select some random wells just near to the west coast of the lake. You can find the position of this wells in Fig. 2. Data in east coast is not ready for use for now and I will try to manipulate them a.s.a.p. Followingly, a Pearson correlation coefficient test between Lake water level and water level in wells is done and interesting results are shown in Fig. 3 with a radar chart including the direction of such relations.

Fig. 3. Correlaogram radar chart

Fig. 2. Position of wells in west coast of the Lake

It is obvious that, there is strong linear relationship specially in North and South of the basin all with negative values. Same analysis on probability distribution function of lake water and water level in wells showed strong similarities in shape and moments of distribution. I have done some investigations on the structure of cross-correlations in time and space between lake and coastal aquifer. Two samples of such investigation are shown in Fig. 4. You can see seasonality and strong interaction between lake and coastal aquifer. As shown in Fig. 3 and 4,  these two stations (Station 1 and 6) have the most impact on the interaction.

Fig. 4. Cross-correlation between lake water level and water level in wells of station 1 and 6

I though a model may reveal more detailed structure of the relation, so I used to select a probabilistic one. As entropy concept is very popular now a days I used DT for manipulation of data and calibrated my tree. Here is the scatter plot of my model in Fig. 5. As you can see these are strong estimation result and I personally satisfied with the results.

Fig. 5. Scatter lot of DT model

That is all I was eager to share for now!

So I think I proved my theory at least to some extent. You may find out my paper's abstract in Related page in my weblog and/or download the whole article from ASCE library.

Please share your points of view with me.

Thank you

Can Water Diplomacy Enable a New Future for the Urmia Lake?

A two-day workshop on a case study using the Water Diplomacy Framework. July 02-03, 2015 at Tufts University and MIT.

There was an ongoing workshop and webinar in TUFTS and MIT about the Lake and several investigators and research makers were evolved. I completely forgot to put the link here for those whom are interested to follow the debate.

Anyway, I am putting some links and picture here about the webinar.

Participants:

Prof. Asghar Asghari Moghadam Heris

He received a PhD in hydrogeology from University College London, 1991. He has over two decades of consulting, training and research experiences in groundwater modeling and management, hydrogeochemistry, groundwater contamination and groundwater in fractured rocks. Now, he is Dean of Natural Sciences Faculty in University of Tabriz (Iran).

Prof. Shafiqul Islam

Shafiqul (“Shafik”) Islam is Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Professor of Water Diplomacy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts. He was the first Bernard M. Gordon Senior Faculty Fellow in Engineering at Tufts University. Professor Islam’s teaching and research interests are to understand characterize, measure, and model water issues ranging from climate to cholera to water diplomacy with a focus on scale issues and remote sensing. His research group WE REASoN integrates “theory and practice” and “think and do” to create actionable water knowledge. Read more.

Dr. Razyeh Lak
She is assistant professor of Research Institute for Earth Sciences, Geological Survey of Iran. Her work experience includes manager of Urmia Lake Restoration Program in the field of geology, president of geoscience and vice president of oceanography committees of the Iranian National Commission for UNESCO.

Prof. Saeed Morid
Saeed Morid has over two decades of consulting, training and research experiences in different aspects of water resources management. Presently, he is a faculty member in Tarbiat Modares University (Iran). The main fields of his work are drought, climate change and integrated modeling of water resources systems.
Prof. James Wescoat
His research has concentrated on water systems in South Asia and the US from the site to river basin scales. For the greater part of his career, Professor Wescoat has focused on small-scale historical waterworks of Mughal gardens and cities in India and Pakistan. He led the Smithsonian Institution’s project titled, “Garden, City, and Empire: The Historical Geography of Mughal Lahore,” which resulted in a co-edited volume on Mughal Gardens: Sources, Places, Representations, Prospects, and The Mughal Garden: Interpretation, Conservation, and Implications with colleagues from the University of Engineering and Technology-Lahore. These and related books have won awards from the Government of Pakistan and Punjab Government.

Dr. Kamran Zeynalzadeh

As director of Urmia Lake Research Institute (Urmia University, Iran) my research focuses on study and evaluation of irrigation and drainage systems, environmental studies, On-farm water management and catchment area, percolation and leakage in soils.

Speakers (Online)

Dr. Hamed Ghoddusi
Hamed Ghoddusi is an Assistant Professor at the School of Business, Stevens Institute of Technology. Before joining Stevens he was a postdoctoral associate at MIT’s Engineering Systems Division (ESD). He has received his Ph.D. from the Vienna Graduate School of Finance (VGSF) and degrees in Economics, Management Science, and Industrial Engineering from the Institute for Advanced Studies (Vienna) and Sharif University of Technology (Tehran). His research interests include Resource and Energy Economics, Society-Centered Financial Innovation, and Risk Management. Hamed has been a visiting scholar/consultant at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (OIES), UT Austin, UC Berkeley, UNDP, and UNIDO.

Dr. Kaveh Madani
Kaveh Madani is an Environmental Management Lecturer at the Centre for Environmental Policy of the Imperial College London. Prior to this he was an assistant professor of Civil, Environmental, and Construction Engineering and an Alex Alexander Fellow at the University of Central Florida (UCF), where he founded and directed the Hydro-Environmental & Energy Systems Analysis (HEESA) Research Group. His core research interests and experiences include integrated water, environmental, and energy resources engineering and management. His work includes applications of systems engineering, conflict resolution, system dynamics, economics, optimization as well as simulation and modeling methods to water, environmental, and energy resource problems at different scales to derive policy and management insights.

Prof. Soroosh Sorooshian
Sorooshian is a Distinguished Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth System Science Departments and Director of the Center for Hydrometeorology & Remote Sensing (CHRS) at University of California Irvine. His area of expertise includes the interface of global hydrologic cycle, and climate system. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE); the International Academy of Stronautics (IAA); and the World Academy of Sciences (TWAS). Among his other honors: recently named the 2014 Einstein Professorship by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); the 2013 recipient of the American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) Robert E. Horton Medal,; Recipient of the 2010 4th Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water Resources Management & Protection; recipient of the 2005 NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal; the 2012 Eagleson lectureship, Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science (CUAHSI); honorary Professor at Beijing Normal University, China 2010; named the Walter Orr Roberts Lecturer, American Meteorological Society (AMS), 2009; recipient of AMS Robert E. Horton Memorial Lectureship, 2006; and the William Nordberg Memorial Lecture at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in 2004. He has served on numerous advisory committees, including those of NASA, NOAA, DOE, USDA, NSF, EPA, and UNESCO and has testified to both U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate Committees on issues related to water, climate and satellite programs.

Invited Panelists

Dr. Seyed Hamed Alemohammad
Seyed Hamed Alemohammad is a postdoctoral associate in the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he also received his PhD in 2014. His research interests lies on the boundaries of Earth system science, remote sensing and statistics. In particular, characterizing heterogeneous and spatio-temporal processes to better understand the water and carbon cycles at global and local scales. He has worked at the Regional Center on Urban Water Management – Tehran (under the auspices of UNESCO) from 2006 – 2009.

Dr. Hamed Ashouri
Hamed Ashouri received his PhD at the University of California, Irvine. His research interests include remote sensing of global precipitation, hydrological and climatic extremes (esp. floods and droughts), hydrological modeling, and climate change and variability. He is currently a research scientist at the research department of the catastrophe risk modeling company, called AIR Worldwide, headquartered in Boston, MA

Dr. Antje Danielson
Antje Danielson is the Administrative Director at Tufts Institute of the Environment as well as the graduate interdisciplinary Water: Systems, Science and Society (WSSS) program. She came to Tufts from Durham University (UK), where she served as the Deputy Director for Sustainability, in May 2008. Previously, she worked with the Harvard Green Campus Initiative. A long-time resident of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Antje co-founded the innovative carsharing company Zipcar. She holds a Ph.D. in Geology from Free University, Berlin.
Dr. Amin Dezfuli
Amin Dezfuli is a research scientist at the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department, Johns Hopkins University. His research uses a suite of observational and numerical modeling techniques to address questions of regional climate variability and change, and their implications to water resources development plans and environmental sustainability.
Mr. David Fairman
David Fairman is a facilitator of natural resource conflict resolution and collaboration, primarily international, with several water engagements over the past twenty years. He recently did strategic planning for TNC’s Great Rivers Partnership, dialogue on India-Pakistan co-management of the Indus basin, and work with Steering Committee for America’s Watershed Initiative. Currently planning additional work on water-food-energy-nexus in the Middle East.
Prof. Michael Fischer
Michael Fischer teaches in the MIT Science, Technology and Society Program, the Anthropology Program, and the Health Science and Technology Program. He has lived in Yazd and Qum and traveled around Iran, and is generally interested in the water problems of Iran and similar environments, and so hopes to learn from the workshop. He currently (this spring term) has been living in Singapore and become interested in the very different water problems of Southeast Asia and the technologies features in the annual Water Week trade show and convention held in Singapore. As an anthropologist rather than an engineer, he is interested in the ways in which communities of expertise are fostered and sustained, both within countries and through their diasporas, as well as through collaborations.

Mrs. Jaleh Jalili
Jaleh Jalili is a PhD candidate in sociology at Brandeis University. Her research interests include urban sociology and use of public spaces. She has a master degree in urban design form University of Tehran and has worked as an urban designer on revitalization and renovation of old urban fabrics in Tehran and other cities.
Mr. Babak Manouchehrifar
Babak Manouchehrifar is a PhD candidate in Urban and Regional Planning, specialization in International Development Planning, at MIT. Interested in comparative studies of planning cultures, his research interests lie in the interface of religion and development planning in the global South with a focus on Iran. He has backgrounds in Civil Engineering and City Planning.
Mr. Jeff Meller
CEO of renewable energy start-up, fund manager, lawyer, teacher in water and other infrastructure sectors globally. Former CEO of renewable energy start-up. Former fund manager making private equity and listed company investments in emerging markets. Former lawyer specializing in emerging/frontier market infrastructure (privatization, power, water, highways) representing investors and governments in more than a dozen countries of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. Lived in India for two years while working on independent power projects. Former instructor of international project finance at Boston University School of Law.
Mr. Hojjat Mianabadi
Hojjat Mianabadi is a research scholar in Water Diplomacy IGERT project at Tufts University and PhD candidate at TU Delft, the Netherlands. His research interests include hydropolitics and water policy, negotiation and conflict management, water governance, and environmental policy analysis.
Mr. Leonard A. Miller
Leonard A. Miller is a 2015 Advanced Leadership Fellow at the Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative. He is also Senior Counsel to the international law firm Sullivan & Worcester and Senior Advisor to Dawson & Associates, a consulting firm providing assistance on U.S. water issues. Mr. Miller was one of the founding members of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) , where, among other things, he developed the U.S. national water discharge elimination permit system and headed the U.S. water enforcement program. Mr. Miller was a charter member of the U.S. Senior Executive Service, and received a Commendation Medal from the U.S. Public Health Service as well as a Distinguished Career Award from the U.S. EPA. Mr. Miller has written two books on the Clean Water Act. Mr. Miller has a law degree from the Harvard Law School and he has been consistently ranked as one of the leading environmental lawyers in the U.S.


Dr. Balasubramaniam Murali — UNDP Deputy Resident Representative

Prof. Bish Sanyal
Professor Bish Sanyal is Ford International Professor of Urban Development and Planning in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT. He also heads the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program at MIT and is Director of the MIT Comprehensive Initiative on Technology Evaluation (CITE) as part of USAID’s Higher Education Solutions Network (HESN) to evaluate technologies for the poor. Professor Sanyal has published extensively on cities and city planning in developing countries, particularly, how to integrate the majority of urban population who are poor into the physical and economic fabric of the city. He has also written on internationalization of planning education.
Dr. Afreen Siddiqi
Dr. Afreen Siddiqi has joint positions as a Research Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and a Visiting Scholar with the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program at Harvard Kennedy School. Her research expertise is at the intersection of engineering and policy, and some of her current research is on quantitative systems analysis of emerging critical linkages between water, energy, and food security at urban, provincial, and national scales in the Middle East and the Indus Basin of Pakistan.

Prof. Ashok Swain
Ashok Swain is a Professor of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University Sweden and is a Visiting Professor at Tufts University’s Water Diplomacy Program. He received his PhD from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi in 1991, and since then he has been teaching at the Uppsala University. He has been a Mac Arthur Fellow at the University of Chicago, visiting fellow at UN Research Institute for Social Development, Geneva; and visiting professor at University Witwatersrand, University of Science, Malaysia, University of British Columbia, University of Maryland, Stanford University and McGill University. Read More.

The direct link to the website (Tufts):
 http://environment.tufts.edu/blog/2015/05/11/urmialake/

Some pictures taken from webinar:

Fig 1. Wells and Qanats distribution through basin

Fig 2. Conceptual model of the interaction between Lake and Groundwater in East coast near Azarshar city

Fig 3. From left to right in the first row Dr. Zeynalzadeh, Dr. Asghari Moghadam and Dr. Morid participating from Iran

Fig .4 Some information about the Qanats, springs and wells in the basin

Fig 5. Presentation of Dr. Ghoddusi 

Fig 6. A general overview through the session in MIT 

UNEP: The Drying of Iran's Lake Urmia and its Environmental Consequences

Having trouble reading this Download the PDF.

FEBRUARY 2012


Thematic Focus: Climate Change, Resource Efficiency, Ecosystem Management, and Environmental Governance

The Drying of Iran's Lake Urmia and its Environmental Consequences

Lake Urmia in the northwestern corner of Iran is one of the largest permanent hypersaline lakes in the world and the largest lake in the Middle East (1,2,3). It extends as much as 140 km from north to south and is as wide as 85 km east to west during high water periods (4). The lake was declared a Wetland of International Importance by the Ramsar Convention in 1971 and designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1976 (5,6). The lake itself is home to a unique brine shrimp species, Artemia urmiana, and along with the surrounding wetlands and upland habitat, it supports many species of reptiles, amphibians and mammals. Lake Urmia provides very important seasonal habitat for many species of migrating birds. Around 200 species of birds have been documented on and surrounding the lake including pelicans, egrets, ducks, and flamingos (7). The watershed of the lake is an important agricultural region with a population of around 6.4 million people; an estimated 76 million people live within a radius of 500 km (8).

This photo along the lake’s shoreline shows the salt left behind as the lake retreats. Photo Source: Wikipedia

The lake's surface area has been estimated to have been as large as 6 100 km² but since 1995 it has generally been declining (9) and was estimated from satellite data to be only 2 366 km² in August of 2011 (Landsat data). The decline is generally blamed on a combination of drought, increased water diversion for irrigated agriculture within the lake's watershed and mismanagement (2,9,10,1). In addition, a causeway has been built across the lake with only a 1 500 m gap for water to move between the northern and southern halves of the lake (9). It has been suggested that this has decreased circulation within the lake and altered the pattern of water chemistry; however evidence suggests that the impact of the causeway on the uniformity of water chemistry in the lake has been minimal (11,9,10,12). The unfolding ecological disaster threatens to leave much of the lake bed a salt-covered wasteland. Scientists have warned that continued decline would lead to increased salinity, collapse of the lake's food chain and ecosystem, loss of wetland habitat, wind blown "salt-storms," alteration of local climate and serious negative impacts on local agriculture and livelihoods as well as regional health (10,9,1,13).

Thousands of protesters took to the streets in the cities of Tabriz and Urmia in late August and early September 2011 saying that authorities have done too little to save the lake (14,15,16). Those around the lake fear a fate similar to that of the population surrounding the nearby Aral Sea, which has dried up over the past several decades. Disappearance of the Aral Sea has been an environmental disaster affecting people throughout the region with windblown salt-storms. The population surrounding Lake Urmia is much denser putting more people at risk of impact.

A Unique Lake

Lake Urmia is an endorheic or terminal lake meaning that water leaves the lake only by evaporation. As is generally the case, this leads to a saltwater body and in the case of Lake Urmia, salinity is quite high. The lake has dramatically decreased in volume over the past decade-and-a-half, further concentrating salts in the lake, raising salinity to more than 300 g/L (9) or 8 times as salty as typical seawater. Aquatic biodiversity is limited by the lake's salinity and Lake Urmia does not support any fish or mollusk species and no plants other than phytoplankton within the lake (17,18,19,12). Wetlands surrounding the lake support a variety of salt tolerant plant species (19). There is significant phytoplankton growth, with reports of some dense algae blooms occurring during years with low salinity (9). The most significant aquatic biota in the lake is a brine shrimp species, Artemia urmiana. This macro-zooplankton species is the key link in the lake's food chain, consuming algae and in turn being consumed by several bird species including the Lake's migratory flamingo population (19). The diverse bird population of Lake Urmia and its associated wetlands was documented in a series of surveys in the 1970s which recorded an impressive list of species (7).

A Rapid Decline

Satellite altimeter data measured the lake's level in 1995 to be at its highest level of any time in the past 40 years (Figure 1) (21,4). This is in agreement with Hassanzadeh and others (2011) who state a measured water level of roughly 1 278 m above sea level for the same time. Both measures show a steady decline from that year forward with the most recent satellite altimeter data indicating a drop of approximately 7 metres between 1995 and 2011 (21).

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Figure 1: Overlaying multiple records of the lake's surface elevation shows generally good agreement. These data suggest that sometime around 2008, Lake Urmia declined below any point in the past 100 years of recorded lake levels and well below the long term average.

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Figure 2: Surface area estimated from Landsat satellite imagery. 

Because the lake is relatively shallow, this decline in water level translates to an equally dramatic decline in surface area (Figures 2 & 3). Satellite imagery extending back to the early 1960s shows the lake's area to have been somewhat smaller in 1963, growing to almost 6 000 km² in 1969, and then remaining generally stable from the late 1960s to the mid-1990s. Since peaking in the mid-1990s, surface area has generally declined quite rapidly despite regular seasonal variation and a brief expansion during a wet period in the early 2000s. 

Variability of the lake prior to the early 1960s does not appear to have been widely studied, however, a generalized plot of lake levels dating back to the early 1900s shows only one brief period in 1937 where the lake declined to below 1 273 m above sea level, and then for less than one year (Figure 1)(10). The recent decline reached 1 273 m above sea level in 2008 and, based on satellite images of surface area, the trend has continued through seasonal ups and downs to where current water levels appear to be approaching 1.5 metres lower than at any time in over 100 years (21,22).

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Source: 1963 Image: ARGON data from USGS; 1969 image: Corona data from USGS, visualization by UNEP GRID Sioux Falls; 1972-2011 images: landsat data, 2011 image: visualization by UNEP GRID Sioux Falls.

Causes of the Decline

Because Lake Urmia is a terminal lake with no significant water outflow the only way water leaves the lake is by evaporation. Therefore, if the lake declines it is either by increased evaporation or a decrease in water coming into the system. The Zarrineh Rood River is the largest of the thirteen main rivers discharging into Lake Urmia which are the source of the majority of the Lake's water budget (18,9). Additional input comes from rainfall directly over the lake, floodwater from the immediate watershed and a very small fraction from groundwater flow (9,18).

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Figure 4: The number of dams (existing, under construction and under study) within the lake's basin suggest an increase in diversion of surface water beyond current levels which already appear to be unsustainable. Source: Hassanzadeh and others (2011), redrawn by UNEP GRID Sioux Falls

A study modeling the relative influence of various factors on the decline of Lake Urmia found that 65 per cent of the decline was from changes in inflow caused by climate change and diversion of surface water for upstream use, with the remaining balance due to construction of dams (25%) and decreased precipitation over the lake itself (10%) (2). Several other studies also suggest that this diversion of water has been the one of the most, if not the most, significant cause of Lake Urmia's decline with other contributing causes being reduced precipitation, warmer temperatures and groundwater abstraction (9,23,13,24).

The average annual rainfall within the basin from 1967 to 2006 was 235 mm, with variation between about 440 mm in 1968 to less than 150 mm in 2000 (2). Annual rainfall was 40 mm less on average in the basin for the last decade of that period (1997-2006) than it had been for the first 30 years (1967-1996) (2). The arid to semi-arid climate of the basin means that agriculture is largely dependent on irrigation. The decrease in precipitation along with declining groundwater levels in this area (25,1) and a growing population of 6.5 million people within the watershed (8) will likely exert increasing pressure to continue diverting streamflow within the basin before it reaches Lake Urmia.

Serious Impacts

Reduced water volume in the lake has already concentrated the existing salts to 300 g/L or higher in many locations. Sodium chloride concentrations much over 320 g/L are believed to be fatal to the lake's brine shrimp. Optimal conditions for Artemia urmiana appear to be at salt concentrations well under 200 g/L and as salinity rises much above this level, there is a measured negative impact on growth rate, reproduction and mortality (27,19,26). Based on in situ observations of the brine shrimp populations under varying salinities in Lake Urmia, it has been suggested that a concentration of 240 g/L or less would be required to sustain a viable population (19).

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Figure 5: The land left behind as the lake retreats is covered with salt deposits that make it unusable for agriculture. The causeway across the lake can be seen in the lower right of the image.

The lake's brine shrimp are the sole link between the primary production of the lake's algae and the diverse migratory bird population which feeds on these shrimp (19,1,27). Because the brine shrimp occupy this crucial link in the ecosystem their demise would translate into the likely loss of many of Lake Urmia's migratory bird populations and affect the entire ecosystem's sustainability (19,10). Any current or future tourist trade focused on these bird populations would likely also decline dramatically.

As lake levels decline, the exposed lakebed is left with a covering of salts, primarily sodium chloride, making a great salty desert on much of the 400 km² of lost surface area (Figure 5) (10). These salt flats will not support agriculture and inhibit growth of most natural vegetation. The salts are also susceptible to blowing and will likely create "salt-storms" like the ones that have resulted from the drying of the Aral Sea, located 1 200 km to the northeast of Lake Urmia (10). Blowing salts from the Aral Sea have been linked to vegetation-mortality in some cases or, more frequently, reduced vegetation growth, reduced crop yields, ill effects on wild and domestic animals, respiratory illness, eye problems, and throat and esophageal cancer (28). Based on the experience of the Aral Sea salt storms, it is likely that many of the tens of millions of people who live within a few hundred kilometres of the lake will be close enough to experience the impact of these salt storms (28).

Increasing water demand and decreasing water supply

Agriculture surrounding the lake relies on irrigation with groundwater and surface water supplies, which are also being pressured by increasing demand for domestic supply (2). There is considerable evidence that groundwater resources are already being exploited at rates faster than aquifer recharge in the area of the Lake Urmia watershed (25,1). Surface water flows are being diverted for use at rates which do not allow adequate inflow to Lake Urmia to maintain the lake's current level(2,9,23,13). Water use within the Lake Urmia basin at current rates is unsustainable without loss of the lake, and the consequent environmental damage as well as damage to the surrounding population and agriculture. In very simple terms, Lake Urmia needs more water coming in—either from inside or from outside the basin—to avoid an environmental tragedy.

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Figure 6: Two other lakes of similar size—Lake Sevan and Lake Van—and each less than 200 km from Urmia do not show the dramatic change apparent in Lake Urmia from 2001 to 2011. Both of these lakes are much deeper and thus generally less susceptible to rapid loss of surface area due to decreased inflow. Lake Urmia, being the shallowest of the three, has responded relatively quickly to the diversion of streamflow by the many dams built in the Urmia basin. Source: Modis Data from NASA, visualization by UNEP GRID Sioux Falls

Possible Actions

The two principal approaches to the problem are to adjust water allocation within the basin to allow an adequate environmental flow for sustaining Lake Urmia and/or to import water from outside the basin which would increase water levels and dilute salinity within the lake.

Reducing the amount of water diverted for agriculture, domestic and industrial use, or at least curtailing the growth in these water uses, may help stop or slow the decline of Lake Urmia (2). Abbaspour and Nazaridoust (2007) have produced an estimate of inflow required to maintain the lake. They estimate that an annual volume of 3 085 million cubic metres would be the ecological water requirement of Lake Urmia which would "keep the ecological functions of the lake sustainable" and allow the survival of a viable Artemia urmiana population. Another study estimates the needed maintenance volume to be in the same range, at between 2 600 and 4 200 million cubic metres per year, but also points out that larger inflow would be required to accelerate the recovery during an initial period of several years (10). The problem with this solution is the heavy reliance of the region's agriculture on surface flow for irrigation water. Some water could be saved through increased efficiencies and improved management (2). However, with a growing population, continuing dam and irrigation development and especially if recent trends in rainfall and temperature continue, this will likely prove to be unpopular, impractical and—on its own—an inadequate solution (10,2).

The causeway and bridge built across Lake Urmia was completed in November 2008. There is concern that it inhibits circulation within the lake and may exacerbate environmental issues caused by the lower water levels. Photo Source: Wikipedia

The other widely suggested solution is to divert water from elsewhere to make up for the lost water volume no longer reaching the lake. A few possible sources have been put forward including the Zab River (9), the Aras River and the Caspian Sea. Inter-basin transfer of water may be the solution which holds the most promise of rescuing Lake Urmia, due to the large volume of water that would be needed. In the case of the Caspian Sea however, the distance of the proposed transfer route is around 300 km and the cost has been estimated at around 4 to 5.5 billion US $ (10). In addition, the timeframe for completing such a project has been estimated to be around 5 years and even the most aggressive rates of transfer would take an additional year to restore lake level to what it was in 2003 (10). Finally, transfer from the Caspian Sea would require negotiated agreements with the other countries which border the sea. So far talks have been unsuccessful in reaching an accord (29). While transfers from other river basins in the region could be less time consuming and expensive the total volume of water available would be limited, and by some accounts would be inadequate (10). The relatively smaller potential volume would also mean a greater possibility that transfers could impact the source basins negatively. The Zab River Basin is located in Turkey and Iraq and would require cooperation of those two countries. The Aras River Basin is split roughly in half between Iran and Azerbaijan. News reports suggest that talks have been initiated between the two countries regarding the use of Aras water for transfer to Lake Urmia (30).

Another strategy for bringing additional water into the basin is cloud seeding—attempting to increase precipitation by dispersing substances into clouds (10). Some projects are "under study and operation" (2), however cloud seeding in general is controversial and its impact limited (31,32) making this a partial and uncertain solution at best.

Main findings and implications

Lake Urmia's water level has rapidly declined since the mid-1990s after having remained relatively stable over the 30 prior years. Construction of dams and diversion of surface water for agriculture, along with reduced precipitation and warmer temperatures over the basin, and to a lesser extent reduced inflow of groundwater are generally accepted as the causes (9,2,13). Reduced water volume concentrates the salts in the lake making it too saline for the brine shrimp which—being near the bottom of the simple food chain—support the very diverse bird population for which the lake provides important habitat. The surrounding brackish wetlands with a productive and diverse plant population will also dry up under current trends and conditions. As the lake retreats from its original shoreline it leaves a layer of salt—primarily sodium chloride—which leaves the land unusable for agriculture and threatens to unleash damaging storms of wind-blown salt on the surrounding area. The lake's increasing salinity has reached near saturation at over 300 g/L and threatens to decimate the lake's brine shrimp population which is a key link in the ecology of the lake and surrounding wetlands. While effective integrated water management is called for by many, there are no easy answers. Water conservation within the basin might provide some relief. However, finding the volume of water needed to restore the lake, without going outside the watershed, would probably require allocating water away from important areas of irrigated agriculture. Water transfer from the Caspian Sea would be very expensive and time consuming and may come too late to avert damage to the ecosystem by the historically low water levels and high salinity that are already occurring. Diverting water from neighboring watersheds would be less costly and time consuming but also has some serious challenges. A comprehensive integrated water management plan would take all elements of the basin's water budget into account, balancing demands for irrigation, ecosystem preservation, social and human impact and water quality as well as operating within the national and regional political realities.

Prepared at UNEP-GRID Sioux Falls by Bruce Pengra with the invaluable input of Vahid Garousi PhD, PEng.-University of Calgary, Aref Seyyed Najafi, PhD-University of Calgary and Azar Samadi-Energy Consultant, Calgary Canada

Acknowledgment:

Written by: Bruce Pengraa

Production and Outreach Team: Arshia Chanderc, Erick Litswad, Kim Giesec, Michelle Anthonyc,

Reza Hussainc, Theuri Mwangid

Special thanks to Vahid Garousic, Aref Seyyed Najafic and Azar Samadid for editorial review

(a UNEP GRID Sioux Falls, b UNEP Nairobi, c University of Calgary, d Consultant)

References

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