Lake Urmia, The Tarnished Gem
From the turquoise solitaire of Azerbaijan to the red lake
Lake Urmia (also Orumiyeh or Orumieh) is an
endorheic salt lake in Iran.The lake is located between the provinces of
East Azerbaijan and West Azerbaijan in Iran, and west
of the southern portion of the Caspian Sea. At its greatest extent, 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 sq
mi), a length of 140 km (87 mi), a width of 55 km (34 mi), and a maximum
depth of 16 m (52 ft).
Revered by ethnic Azeris as “the turquoise solitaire of Azerbaijan,”
this lake has chipped away since the early 1970s, reducing its size by
about 80 percent over the past 30 years. By late 2017, the lake had
shrunk to 10% of its former size (and 1/60 of water volume in 1998) due
to persistent general drought in Iran, but also the damming of the local
rivers that flow into it, and the pumping of groundwater from the
surrounding area.
The images above show Lake Urmia on April 9, 2018, and April 12, 2019. The images were acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite. Officials report that the lake’s surface area reached roughly 3,000 square kilometers (1,200 square miles) in April 2019.
The flamingos that feasted on brine shrimp in this UNESCO biosphere reserve are mostly gone. So are the pelicans, the egrets, and the ducks. Even the tourists who flocked to Lake Urmia for therapeutic baths in its warm, hypersaline waters are staying away. What remain are piers that lead nowhere, the rusting carcasses of ships half-buried in the silt, and white, barren landscapes of exposed salt flats. Winds that whip across the lake bed blow salt dust to farm fields, slowly rendering the soil infertile. Noxious, salt-tinged dust storms inflame the eyes, skin, and lungs of people as far away as Tabriz, a city of more than 1.5 million about 60 miles away. And in recent years Urmia’s alluring turquoise waters were stained blood-red from algae and bacteria that flourish in these waters, which are eight times as salty as the ocean, and then turn color when sunlight penetrates the shallows.
What’s happened to this cherished lake? Climate change has intensified droughts and elevated hot summer temperatures that speed up evaporation, scientists say. Yet that’s only part of the story: Engineers and water experts point out that the lake in this semiarid region is suffering from thousands of illegal wells and a proliferation of dams and irrigation projects that are diverting water from tributary rivers to grow apples, wheat, and sunflowers. The experts have called on Iran’s government to change course before Urmia “falls victim to the Aral Sea syndrome,” the overexploitation of water that doomed its sister inland sea in Central Asia.