August 08, 2014
This photo of Lake Urumiyeh was taken June 23 by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station. It shows how the southern half of the lake no longer exists, leaving just a salt plain behind. A government report said that in 2013 only 20 percent of the normal surface area of the lake remained after the dry season. But the photo obscures the fact that the volume of water now in the lake is only 5 percent of its previous maximum volume. The slow death of the lake is the result of several causes, but the main factor is the building of many dams on the rivers leading to the lake in order to divert water for agriculture. Now winds blowing over the resultant salt flats carry salt into the new irrigated fields, reducing the amount that can be grown there.
