Abstract of the Thesis

Lake Urmia was the second largest permanent hyper-saline lake in the World and the biggest in Middle East. The alerting situation of the lake pushed the authority such that the United Nations declared it as the wetland of international importance and World’s biosphere reserve. In late 1990’s water level in the lake started to decline with a sharp trend such that a wasteland of salty desert was conceptualized for the lake’s future. Many researchers around the world tried to model, suggest or decode the fact behind the lake’s atrophy mostly accused by miss-management, dam construction, development of agricultural zones, climate change etc. as the main reason for the lake atrophy.

In this study, a lake water budget approach using hydro-meteorological variables; precipitation, evaporation, runoff and groundwater, was considered. For this aim, data from meteorological stations, stream-flow gauging stations and groundwater wells were gathered. Data were analyzed and a data inventory was obtained. The data inventory consists of 253 meteorological stations, 156 stream-flow gauging stations, 593 groundwater wells and 1 lake water level station all scattered over the Lake Urmia basin. Precipitation and evaporation were taken from meteorological stations. In this study, 7 meteorological stations, 18 stream-flow gauging stations and 9 groundwater wells were considered together with the lake water level station. The selected stations and groundwater wells are close to the lake and scatter around it. 

Data in the selected stations and groundwater wells were checked against any missing data periods. Most of the stations were found with missing data. Groundwater wells have particularly long period of time with no data. For getting a common period for the analysis, missing data were reconstructed by a frequency domain analysis using decomposition. With this method, each time series of each station and groundwater well were decomposed into its components; trend, cycle, seasonality and randomness. An additive decomposition method was chosen. Observed time series was divided into calibration and validation parts. The decomposition method was used to fit a model to the calibration time series and to validate it then on the validation time series. Once validated, the model was run to reconstruct the missing data. This procedure was applied on all time series of precipitation, evaporation, runoff and groundwater. The observed and reconstructed precipitation, evaporation, runoff and groundwater time series were used to calculate lake water level. The calculated lake water level was compared with the observed lake water level. They were found in a very good agreement. This has been considered as a further validation of the reconstructed missing data. 

Observed and reconstructed hydro-meteorological data were used together to develop models for forecasting lake water level. In the model, lake water depth was considered instead of lake water level. For this aim, two methods were combined. First, lake water depth was regressed on independent variables; precipitation, evaporation, runoff and groundwater. The second step is the development of stochastic model for each variable. Auto-regressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models were used. A number of models were tested and finally the best models were determined based on performance criteria for each variable. The number of parameters was kept at minimum for the sake of parsimony. As the final step in the modeling, not hydro-meteorological variables (precipitation, evaporation, runoff and groundwater) but their selected stochastic models were inserted into the regression model developed at the very beginning step. This is defined as regressive-stochastic depth model.

Alternatively, difference in the lake water levels of two subsequent months was taken into account instead of the lake water depth when the regression model is developed in the first step. Because lake water depth can mask change in the lake water level as they have different orders of magnitudes.

From this study it is seen that Lake Urmia is under a serious atrophy problem that should be studied in a long-term interdisciplinary approach. Lake Urmia has a considerably well documented data although record periods without data may become problematic. The frequency domain analysis can be a tool to satisfactorily reconstruct the missing data in the hydro-meteorological time series. Lake water level models can be developed based on either lake water depth or the difference in the lake water level between subsequent months. Due to the order of magnitude difference between the depth and the depth difference, it is clear that depth models can mask the effect of each input variable; precipitation, evaporation, runoff and groundwater, on the lake water level. Therefore, depth difference models should be preferred for the sake of understanding the physical process in the lake water level precisely. Regressive-stochastic models were found successful in calculating the lake water level. In the proposed regressive-stochastic models, only previously observed hydro-meteorological data are needed. This is a good opportunity for one to be able to estimate the next month lake water level. This will help us decision makers to act in advance.

As a future suggestion, the lake and its watershed should be investigated through an interdisciplinary approach. As the change is a continuous process it is suggested that any model proposed should be revised every several years and/or after any major change happens in the basin.

Breaking news :)

I have just finished with data generation and construction of rivers.
Take a look at the percentages that I calculated. Values are calculated by average daily in month!!!!
This results will definitely changes everything.

I am so excited!

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 

Runoff percentageof each river through LUB

I got this pie-chart from web. I thought maybe it will be useful for those whom are interested in topic.

Runoff through rivers (Source: miktechnology)

River system of the LUB

Lake Urmia [Wikipedia]

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lake Urmia
Lake Urmia from space in 1984
Coordinates	37°42′N 45°19′ECoordinates: 37°42′N 45°19′E
Type	salt (hypersaline) lake
Primary inflows	Zarriné-Rūd, Simineh-Rūd,Mahabad River, Gadar River, Barandouz River,Shahar River, Nazlou River,Zola River, Qatur River,Kaftar Ali Chay, Aji Chay,Boyuk Chay, Rudkhaneh-ye Qal'eh Chay, Qobi Chay,Rudkhaneh-ye Mordaq,Leylan River
Primary outflows	none: all water entering the lake is lost throughevaporation
Basin countries	Iran
Max. length	140 km (87 mi)
Max. width	55 km (34 mi)
Surface area	5,200 km2 (2,000 sq mi)
Max. depth	16 m (52 ft)
Islands	102 (see list)

Diminishing of surface of lake Urmia

Lake Urmia is an endorheic salt lake in northwestern Iran near Iran's border with Turkey.[1][2] The lake is between the provinces of East Azerbaijan andWest Azerbaijan in Iran, and west of the southern portion of the Caspian Sea. At its full size, it was the largest lake in the Middle East and the sixth largest saltwater lake on earth with a surface area of approximately 5,200 km² (2,000 mile²), 140 km (87 mi) length, 55 km (34 mi) width, and 16 m (52 ft) depth.[3]

Lake Urmia along with its once approximately 102 islands are protected as a national park by the Iranian Department of Environment.

Along with Lake Van and Lake Sevan, Urmia was considered one of the three great lakes of the historical Armenian Kingdom, collectively referred to as the 'Seas of Armenia'.

Contents

  [hide] 

• 1 Names and etymologies
• 2 History
• 3 Chemistry
• 4 Ecology
• 5 Palaeoecology
• 6 Islands
• 7 Basin rivers
• 8 Environmental rallies
  • 8.1 In popular culture
• 9 See also
• 10 References
• 11 External links

Names and etymologies[edit]

Currently the lake is named after the provincial capital city of Urmia, originally an Assyrian name meaning Puddle of water. However, in the early 1930s, it was called Lake Rezaiyeh (Persian: دریاچه رضائیه‎) after Reza Shah Pahlavi, it was after the Iranian Revolution in the late 1970s, that the lake was renamed Urmia. Its ancient Old Persian name was Chichast (meaning, "glittering"–a reference to the glittering mineral particles suspended in the lake water and found along its shores). In medieval times it came to be known as Lake Kabuda (Kabodan),[4] from the word for "azure" in Persian, or 'կապույտ' ("Kapuyt/Gabuyd") in Armenian. The Latin name was Lacus Matianus so it is referred to in some texts as Lake Matianus or Lake Matiene.

Locally, the lake is referred to in Persian as دریاچه ارومیه, Daryāche-ye Orūmiye; inAzerbaijani as Urmu gölü, ﺍﻭﺭﻣﻮ ﮔﺆﻟﻮ, and in Kurdish as Wermy. The Armenianname is Կապուտան ծով, Kaputan ts'ov.

History[edit]

O

ne of the early mentions of Lake Urmia is from the Assyrian records from 9th century BCE. There, in the records of Shalmaneser III (reign 858–824 BCE), two names are mentioned in the area of Lake Urmia: Parsuwash (i.e. the Persians) and Matai (i.e. the Mitanni). It is not completely clear whether these referred to places or tribes or what their relationship was to the subsequent list of personal names and "kings". But Matais wereMedes and linguistically the name Parsuwash matches the Old Persian word pārsa, an Achaemenid ethnolinguistic designation.[5]

The lake was the center of the Mannaean Kingdom. A potential Mannaean settlement, represented by the ruin mound ofHasanlu, was on the south side of the lake. Mannae was overrun by the people who were called Matiani or Matieni, anIranian people variously identified as Scythian, Saka, Sarmatian, or Cimmerian. It is not clear whether the lake took its name from the people or the people from the lake, but the country came to be called Matiene or Matiane, and gave the lake its Latin name.

In the last five hundred years the area around Lake Urmia has been home to Iranians, Kurds, Assyrians, Armenians, andAzeris.

Chemistry[edit]

The main cations in the lake water include Na+, K+, Ca2+, Li+ and Mg2+, while Cl−, SO42−, HCO3− are the main anions. The Na+ and Cl− concentration is roughly four times the concentration of natural seawater. Sodium ions are at slightly higher concentration in the south compared to the north of the lake, which could result from the shallower depth in the south, and a higher net evaporation rate.

The lake is divided into north and south, separated by a causeway in which a 1.5-kilometre (0.93 mi) gap provides little exchange of water between the two parts. Due to drought and increased demands for agricultural water in the lake's basin, the salinity of the lake has risen to more than 300 g/litre during recent years, and large areas of the lake bed have been desiccated.[6]

The Fist of Osman, Lake Urmia's smallest island[7]

Ecology[edit]

A

A

G

G

H

K

LU

M

T

D

UNESCO Biosphere Reserves in Iran[8]

See also: Geography of Iran and Environmental issues in Iran

Lake Urmia is home to some 212 species of birds, 41 reptiles, 7 amphibians, and 27 species of mammals,[9] including the Iranian yellow deer.[10] It is an internationally registered protected area as both a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve[8] and a Ramsar site.[11] The Iranian Dept. of Environment has designated most of the lake as a National Park.[12]

The recent drought has significantly decreased the annual amount of water the lake receives. This in turn has increased the salinity of the lake's water, lowering the lake viability as home to thousands of migratory birds including the large flamingo populations. The salinity has particularly increased in the half of the lake north of the causeway.

The lake is marked by more than a hundred small, rocky islands, which serve as stopover points during the migrations of several wild birds including flamingos, pelicans,spoonbills, ibises, storks, shelducks, avocets, stilts, and gulls.

By virtue of its high salinity, the lake no longer sustains any fish species. Nonetheless, Lake Urmia is considered a significant natural habitat of Artemia, which serve as food source for the migratory birds such as flamingos.[13] In early 2013, the then-head of the Iranian Artemia Research Center was quoted that Artemia Urmiana had gone extinct due to the drastic increases in salinity. However this assessment has been contradicted.[14]

The lake is a major barrier between two of the most important cities in West Azerbaijan and East Azerbaijan provinces, Urmia and Tabriz. A project to build a highway across the lake was initiated in the 1970s but was abandoned after the Iranian Revolution of 1979, having finished a 15 km causeway with an unbridged gap. The project was revived in the early 2000s, and was completed in November 2008 with the opening of the 1.5 km Urmia Lake Bridge across the remaining gap.[15] The highly saline environment is already heavily rusting the steel on the bridge despite anti-corrosion treatment. Experts have warned that the construction of the causeway and bridge, together with a series of ecological factors, will eventually lead to the drying up of the lake, turning it into a salt marsh which will directly affect the climate of the region. Lake Urmia has been shrinking for a long time, with an annual evaporation rate of 0.6m to 1m (24 to 39 inches). Although measures are now being taken to reverse the trend[16] the lake has shrunk by 60% and could disappear entirely.[16] Only 5% of the lake's water remains.[17]

Bridge construction over Lake Urmia in 2005

On 2 August 2012, Mohammad-Javad Mohammadizadeh, the head of Iran's Environment Protection Organization, announced that Armenia has agreed on transferring water from Armenia to counter the critical fall in Lake Urmia's water levels, remarking that "hot weather and a lack of precipitation have brought the lake to its lowest water levels ever recorded". He added that recovery plans for the lake include the transfer of water from Eastern Azerbaijan Province. Previously, Iranian authorities had announced a plan to transfer water from the Aras River, which borders Iran and Azerbaijan; the 950-billion-toman plan was abandoned due to Azerbaijan's objections.[18]

In July 2014, Iran President Hassan Rouhani approved plans for a 14 trillion rial program (over $500 million) in the first year of a recovery plan. The money is supposed to be used for water management, reducing farmer's water use, and environmental restoration. Several months earlier, in March 2014, Iran's Department of Environment and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) issued a plan to save the lake and the nearby wetland, which called for spending $225 million in the first year and $1.3 billion overall for restoration.[19]

The Silveh Dam in Piranshahr County should be complete in 2015. Through a tunnel and canals it will transfer up to 121,700,000 m3 (98,700 acre·ft) of water from the Lavin River in the Little Zab basin to Lake Urmia basin annually.[20][21][22]

Satellite imagery from 1984 to 2014 revealing Lake Urmia's diminishing surface area (video)

Palaeoecology[edit]

A palynological investigation on long cores from Lake Urmia has revealed a nearly 200 kyr record of vegetation and lake level changes. The vegetation has changed from the Artemisia/grass steppes during the glacial/stadialperiods to oak-juniper steppe-forests during the interglacial/interstadial periods. The lake seems to have had a complex hydrological history and its water levels have greatly fluctuated in the geological history. Very high lake levels have been suggested for some time intervals during the two last glacial periods as well as during both the Last Interglacial as well as theHolocene. Lowest lake levels have occurred during the last glacial periods.

Islands[edit]

Lake Urmia has approximately 102 islands.[23] See List of Lake Urmia's islands.

The lake's largest island, Shahi Island, is the burial place of Hulagu Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan and the sacker of Baghdad. In 1967, the Iranian Department of Environment sent a team of scientists to study the ecology of Shahi Island. Various results of the study which included the breeding habits of brine shrimp were published by Javad Hashemi in the scientific journal, Iranian Scientific Sokhan.

Basin rivers[edit]

• Aji Chay Alamlou River 
• Barandouz River
• Gadar River
• Ghaie River 
• Leylan River 
• Mahabad River 
• Nazlou River 
• Rozeh River
• Shahar River 
• Simineh River 
• Zarrineh River
• Zola River

Environmental rallies[edit]

Recently, Lake Urmia faces the danger of drying out and the local Azeri population holds the Iranian regime accountable suspecting that the neglect for Lake Urmia’s environmental problems stems from the Iranian government’s deliberate policy to depopulate the area densely populated by an ethnic minority – the Azerbaijani people.[24]

• On 2 April 2010 and 2011, and after several callings from Tractor Sazi F.C.'s fans in stadiums[25][26] and internet sites, protest demanding that the government take action to save Lake Urmia was held in Tabriz, Urmia, on the lake beach, and on top of the lake bridge. As a result, dozens of people were arrested by security forces.[27][28][29]
• In August 2011, after the Iranian parliament dropped two emergency cases for reviving the lake, a number of soccer fans at Tabriz derby (soccer match between Tractor Sazi F.C. and Shahrdari Tabriz F.C.) were arrested for shouting slogans in favor of protecting the lake.[30] Later that same week, Iranian Azerbaijanians scheduled a protest against the parliament move. Despite the capture of more than 20 activists by security forces the day before the protest, numerous people attended the event in Urmia and a number of clashes with police were reported[31][32]
• On 3 September 2011, Iranian Azerbaijanians demonstrated for second week in a row to protect Lake Urmia.[33] The protests in Tabriz and Urmia reportedly followed parliament's rejection of rescue plan, and security forces used violence to break up environmental rallies as protesters demanded action to save Lake Urmia,[34] and according to West Azerbaijan's governor, at least 60 supporters of the lake were arrested just in Urmia and dozens in Tabriz because, according to an Iranian official, they had not applied for a permit to organize a demonstration.[35] On August 2014 a protest campaign for saving the dying lake appeared on a video posted on social media showing a girl speaking in her native language Azeri Turkish " I'm from South Azerbaijan, for saving (to save) Lake Urmia and because of (Iranian president) Mr. Rouhani's failure to keep his promise on saving Lake Urmia, I'm calling him for the Salt Bucket Challenge" then pouring a bucket of salt on herself.[36]

In popular culture[edit]

For Azeri Turks the fate of Lake Urmia is a national, social, and economic issue and regarded as part of the Azerbaijani civilization.[38] Lake Urmia was the setting of the fictional Iranian film The White Meadows (2009), which featured fantastic-looking lands adjacent to a salt sea. There are many popular songs about Lake Urmia in Azeri Turkish such as "Urmu Golu Lay Lay"[39]

See also[edit]

• Urmia Lake Bridge
• Lady Urmia
• List of drying lakes

References[edit]

1. Jump up
   ^ Henry, Roger (2003) Synchronized chronology: Rethinking Middle East Antiquity: A Simple Correction to Egyptian Chronology Resolves the Major Problems in Biblical and Greek Archaeology Algora Publishing, New York, p. 138, ISBN 0-87586-191-1
2. Jump up^ E. J. Brill's first encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913–1936, vol. 7, page 1037 citing Strabo and Ptolemy.
3. Jump up^ "Britanica". Britannica.com. Retrieved 4 September 2011.
4. Jump up^ See, e.g. the Shahnama.
5. Jump up^ cf. Skjærvø, Prods Oktor (2006), "Iran, vi(1). Earliest Evidence", Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. 13
6. Jump up^ Alireza Asem, Fereidun Mohebbi and Reza Ahmadi (2012). "Drought in Urmia Lake, the largest natural habitat of brine shrimpArtemia" (PDF). World aquaculture 43: 36–38.
7. Jump up^ "Saline Systems; Urmia Salt Lake, Iran". Salinesystems.org. Retrieved 4 September 2011.
8. ^ Jump up to:a b "UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Directory".
9. Jump up^ Rezvantalab, Sima and Amrollahi, Mohammad H. (2011) "Investigation of Recent Changes in Urmia Salt Lake"International Journal of Chemical and Environmental Engineering. 2(3): pp. 168–171
10. Jump up^ Yakhchali, M. and Khalili Gholmankhane, N. (2003) "A Survey on Helminth Infection (Flotation Method) in Cervus Linnaeus(Iranian Yellow Deer) in Ashk Island of Lake Urmia" Pajouhesh & Sazandegi 58: pp. 26–27 Abstract
11. Jump up^ Ramsar Sites Information Service
12. Jump up^ ProtectedPlanet - Urumieh lake
13. Jump up^ C. Michael Hogan. 2011. Lake Urmia. Eds. P. Saundry & C. J.Cleveland. Encyclopedia of Earth. National Council for Science and the Environment. Washington, D.C.
14. Jump up^ Critical condition of Artemia Urmiana and possibility of extinction
15. Jump up^ "Iran's East and West Azarbaijan Provinces Conntected by Lake Orumiyeh Bridge". Payvand.com. Retrieved 4 September2011.
16. ^ Jump up to:a b Karmi N. Iran's largest lake turning to salt. Associated Press 25 May 2011.http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110525/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iran_environmental_disaster/print
17. Jump up^ Erdbrink, Thomas (30 January 2014). "Its Great Lake Shriveled, Iran Confronts Crisis of Water Supply". New York Times.Archived from the original on 31 January 2014.
18. Jump up^ http://www.payvand.com/news/12/aug/1010.html
19. Jump up^ http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25850-iran-to-spend-500-million-to-save-shrunken-lake-urmia.html#.U7nrg41dXvI
20. Jump up^ "Completed by the end of the 94 dams Silveh Piranshahr" (in Persian). Kurd Press. 23 August 2014. Retrieved 20 January2015.
21. Jump up^ "Silveh Dam and Irrigation and Drainage" (in Persian). Omran Iran - Deputy Governor of West Azerbaijan. Retrieved20 January 2015.
22. Jump up^ Edris Merufinia, Azad Aram, Fatemeh Esmaeili (2014). "Saving the Lake Urmia: from Slogan to Reality (Challenges and Solutions)" (PDF). Bulletin of Environment, Pharmacology and Life Sciences 3 (3). ISSN 2277-1808. Retrieved 20 January2015.
23. Jump up^ List from: Farahang-e Joghrafiyayi-e shahrestânhâ-ye Keshvar (Shahrestân-e Orumiyeh), Tehran 1379 Hs.
24. Jump up^ Iranian regime is killing Lake Urmia-Umud Duzgun: http://yurd.net/pageE.php?id_contents=0000002754
25. Jump up^ "A video from slogan "Let's cry and fill Lake Urmia with our tears", in Azeri Turkic : Gəlin Gedək Ağlayaq Urmu Gölün Dolduraq". Youtube.com. 13 October 2010. Retrieved 4 September 2011.
26. Jump up^ "A video from slogan "Let's cry and fill Lake Urmia with our tears", in Azerbi Turkic : Gəlin Gedək Ağlayaq Urmu Gölün Dolduraq". Youtube.com. 30 November 2010. Retrieved 4 September 2011.
27. Jump up^ "Iranian greens fear disaster as Lake Orumieh shrinks". The Guardian (London). 5 September 2011.
28. Jump up^ "Video: Urmiye Gölü - İran polisi etirazçılara daş atır! (2 April 2010)". Youtube.com. 6 April 2011. Retrieved 4 September2011.
29. Jump up^ "Video:Təbriz şəhərində 13 Fərvərdin 1390 (2 April 2011)'da geçirilən Urmu gölü mitingindən görüntülər". Youtube.com. 2 April 2011. Retrieved 4 September 2011.
30. Jump up^ Mackey, Robert (30 August 2011). "Protests in Iran Over Disappearing Lake". Iran: New York Times. Retrieved4 September 2011.
31. Jump up^ "Rally protesting Iran over Lake Urmia turns violent". Hurriyet Daily News. Retrieved 4 September 2011.
32. Jump up^ "Iranian Protest Urges Help for Shrinking Lake". San Francisco Chronicle. 30 August 2011. Retrieved 4 September 2011.
33. Jump up^ "Tabriz Demonstration Sep.3.2011 (12 Shehriver 1390) to protect Lake Urmia". Youtube.com. Retrieved 3 September 2011.
34. Jump up^ "Iran police break up environmental protests". euronews.net. Retrieved 4 September 2011.
35. Jump up^ "Iran arrests saltwater lake protesters". BBC. 4 September 2011. Retrieved 4 September 2011.
36. Jump up^ Salt Bucket Challenge Campaign https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=364860460332865&set=vb.362882447197333&type=2&theater
37. Jump up^ "Azeri Turks in Ankara protest Lake Urmia drying up". todayszaman.com. Retrieved 4 September 2011.
38. Jump up^ Iranian Regime is killing Lake Urmia-Umud Duzgun:http://yurd.net/pageE.php?id_contents=0000002754
39. Jump up^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLB9bLOKalY

Note: Provided information are copied directly from Wikipedia.com and does not reflect my point of view in anything. This is just a short cut through the information about the Lake. It is also recommended that information on the site may change often therefore, do not pretend to cite it in academic articles.