Lake Urmia by Marziyeh Heydarzadeh

Private Story

Lake Urmia

Copyright Marziyeh Heydarzadeh 2024

Updated May 2017

Location Urmiya lake

Topics Climate Change, Documentary, Dying/Death, Environment, Photography, Photojournalism

Lake Urmia is a salt lake in the Iranian area Azerbaijan, near the Iranian border with Turkey. The lake is between the Provinces of East Azerbaijan and West Azerbaijan in Iran. At its full size, it was the largest lake in the Middle East and the sixth largest salt-water lake on earth with a surface area of approximately 5,200 km, 140 km (87 mi) length, 55 km (34 mi) width, and 16 m (52 ft) depth. Lake Urmia along with its once approximately 102 islands is protected as a national park by the Iranian Department of Environment. Currently the lake is named after the provincial capital city Urmia, originally an Assyrian name meaning Puddle of water. Lake Urmia was the home to some species of birds, reptiles, amphibians, and 27 species of mammals including the Iranian yellow deer. It is an internationally registered protected area as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve .The Iranian Dept. of Environment has designated most of the lake as a National Park. Due to too much salt no fish lives in this lake anymore .The lake began to dry from mid-1380 and now is at risk of completely drying. Check satellite images show that in 2015 the lake has lost 88 percent of its area. Drought, the construction of Urmia-Tabriz highway on the lake, construction of the uncontrolled dams, digging too much wells and inappropriate use of water for agricultural are the reasons which experts are taking about the causes of this disaster. Compare today's situation comparing with Lake Van, Turkey shows that the reason is not natural causes, because Van is in good situation A new study by experts show that the drought only has caused 5 percent decrease in rainfall in the lake basin and human factors, including economic development-blue ambitious projects along highway 15 kilometers on the lake has caused changing eco-system region. Tropical weather in the area with salt winds which will threaten up to 500 kilometers of the lake will change the environmental pollution soon. Cancers, respiratory and heart diseases are increasing. Unemployment and lack of suitable conditions for agriculture has led to migration. Sharafkhaneh, Bari, Golmankhaneh, Gamichi are some of the harbors and villages around Urmia lake which were very successful in economic and tourism , but most of the residents have emigrated to Capital city Tehran, or other cities such as Tabriz, Urmia or other provinces. The grate view of lake Urmia which invited people to come there has replaced with the dead and deserted lake. Some of experts say that climate change is happening in most of the places in the world, but some human activities may make it sooner. the government has decided to save the lake from the current crisis since two years ago, but the lake is still in critical conditions.

719

Marziyeh Heydarzadeh

Also by Marziyeh Heydarzadeh —

Portfolio 2

Portfolio 1

After the flood