February 28, 2020
Lake Urumiyeh is swelling with new water and now has 40 percent more surface area than it did just one year ago.
The increase in size is attributed primarily to a combination of more rainfall and the diversion of water from other sources into the lake.
The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) said one of the main measures included in the Lake Urumiyeh Restoration Program is to divert water from the Kani Sib Dam reservoir in West Azerbaijan Province to the lake, which involves construction of a 35-kilometer tunnel. Expected to be completed in spring, the tunnel will transfer 650 million cubic meters of water to the lake per annum.
Sealing more than 4,000 illegal wells in the region and promoting a sustainable irrigation system over 6,000 hectares of farmland (i.e., replacing flood irrigation with drip irrigation) are among efforts taken to revive the depleted lake.
Diverting treated wastewater to the lake is also underway to help increase the water level.
The restoration project also calls for diverting water from other reservoirs nearby to the lake. So far, 69 mcm of water from the Shahid Kazemi Dam reservoir has been released into the lake and transferring 45 mcm from Shahrchay Dam is underway, IRNA reported.
Lake Urumiyeh is a closed water body fed through 21 permanent and 39 seasonal rivers.
Once the second-largest saltwater lake in the Middle East, in the early 1970s nearly three decades of drought shriveled the basin, shrinking it by 80 percent.
The drop in water level of the lake was also due to unrestrained damming and excessive water use, especially in the inefficient agriculture sector.
The lake’s water level has now reached 1,272 meters, about 1 meter higher compared to the start of the restoration program in 2014.
Lake Urumiyeh now covers a surface area of 2,840 square kilometers, up 40 percent compared to last year, IRNA said. At its best, it covered a surface area of 5,000 square kilometers.
It now holds 3.5 billion cubic meters of water, which is 1.7 bcm or almost half again as much as last year.