“Considering the current trend of the environmental crisis in Lake Urumiyeh, it will be completely dried up within three years,” Hassan Abbas-nejad reports.
Abbas-nejad said that what the experts forecast 10 years ago is coming true and this ecological asset will be completely destroyed in the near future.
He said the destruction of the lake will create serious environmental problems for the region’s ecological system and climate.
Abbas-nejad said the deepest part of the lake is now only two meters (6 1/2 feet) and the lake has shrunk by 60 percent, resulting in a rise in salinity and a fall in the oxygen content.
The reduction of the oxygen level threatens the survival of the only living creature in the lake, the artemia or brine shrimp, which serves as a food source for flamingos and other migratory birds.
Abbas-nejad cited the high evaporation rate, reduction in the amount of water that flows into the lake, low precipitation, and overexploitation of underground water resources in the region as the main causes of the shrinkage of Lake Urumiyeh.
Experts say the construction of dams on rivers feeding the lake as well as recurrent droughts have significantly decreased the amount of water Lake Urumiyeh receives. Some also say the recent construction of a bridge across the lake has upset its ecological balance.
Abbas-nejad said a working group has been established to find ways to save the lake. He said pumping water into the lake, cloud seeding, restricting the use of the nearby underground water resources and changing the irrigation systems used in surrounding farmlands are the major measures under consideration to save the lake.
Physically, the most notable feature of the lake nowadays is how far one must walk across salt flats just to reach the water. Along the way, one will pass docks standing far from the water and boats locked in salt where they hit bottom as the water retreated.
The receding water has also weakened hotel business and tourism activities in the area, and planned hotel projects remain idle since investors are reluctant to continue.
Beyond tourism, the salt-satu rated lake threatens agriculture nearby, as storms sometimes carry the salt far afield. Many farmers worry about the future of their lands, which for centuries have been famous for apples, grapes, walnuts, almonds, onions, potatoes, as well as aromatic herbal drinks, candies and tasty sweet pastes.
“The salty winds not only will affect surrounding areas but also can damage farming in remote areas,” said Masud Mohammadian, an agriculture official in the eastern part of the lake, told The Associated Press.
Other officials echo the dire forecast.
Masud Pezeshkian, a Majlis deputy from Tabriz, “The lake has been drying but neither government nor local officials have taken any steps so far.”
Official reports blame the drying mainly on a decade-long drought, and peripherally on consumption of water of the feeding rivers for farming. They put 5 percent of the blame on construction of dams and 3 percent on other factors. But many others disagree with this assessment.
The first alarm over the lake’s shrinking came in late 1990s amid a nagging drought.
Nonetheless, the government continued construction of 35 dams on the rivers that feed the lake; 10 more dams are on the drawing boards for the next few years.
Also completed was a lake-crossing roadway between Urumiyeh and Tabriz, cities to the west and east of the lake. No environmental feasibility study was done in the planning for the road, and environmentalists believe the project worsened the lake’s health by acting as a barrier to water circulation.
Nasser Agh, who teaches at Tabriz Sahand University, suggested miscalculations led to a late reaction to save the lake. “Experts believed it would be a 10-year rotating drought, at first,” he said. But long afterward, the drought still persists, with devastating effects.
In the early 2000s, academic research concluded that the lake could face the same destiny as the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, which has been steadily shrinking since rivers that feed it were diverted by Soviet irrigation projects in 1960s. It is now less than one-tenth its original size.
In April, the Iranian government announced a three-pronged effort to save the lake: a cloud-seeding program to increase rainfall in the area; a lowering of water consumption by irrigation systems; and supplying the lake with remote sources of water.
Mohammad Javad Moham-madizadeh, vice president in charge of environmental affairs, said the government approved the three-part approach.
Some experts termed the weather control portion of the program as only a “symbolic action,” saying the best answer would be to release more water currently being held back by dams. The evaporation rate has been three times the rainfall rate, making the rivers’ historic role vital to sustaining the lake.
“The lake is in such a misery because of the dams,” Esmail Kahram, a professor in Tehran’s Azad University and a prominent environmentalist, told The Associated Press. Three-fifths of the lake has dried up and salt saturation has reached some 350 milligrams per liter, more than quadruple the 80 milligrams in 1970s, he said.
Kahram said the government should allow 20 percent of the water from the dams to reach the lake.
Mostafa Ghanbari, secretary of the Society to Save Lake Urumiyeh, believes transferring water from the Caspian Sea may be “the only way to save” the lake. But such a project would be ambitious, requiring the pumping of water some 430 miles (700 kilometers), from a body of water at considerably lower elevation.
Many express happiness with the government decision to seed clouds in hopes of increasing rainfall.
“It is a good decision. Every evening I look at the dark clouds that are coming and I tell my family soon there will be rain,” and on some nights there have been showers, said Masud Ranjbar, a taxi driver.
However, Eskandar Khan-jari, a local journalist, called the cloud-seeding plan “a show.” He said recent rainfall was only seasonal, as predicted by meteorologists.
Scoffing at the promises of officials and what he called “non-expert views,” he said of efforts to save the lake: “It seems that people have only one way; to pray for rain.”