Dying Lake Urmia reflects a broader problem in Iran

[unhappycamper]

http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iran-lake-20140321,0,7538950.story



Two men walk toward salt-covered rocks that were once deep underwater at Lake Urmia, in northwestern Iran. Experts say that in the last two decades, a toxic combination of wasteful irrigation practices, the damming of feeder rivers, prolonged drought and a warming climate has accelerated the decline of the storied lake.

Dying Lake Urmia reflects a broader problem in Iran
By Ramin Mostaghim and Alexandra Sandels
March 21, 2014, 5:00 a.m.

LAKE URMIA, Iran — An eerie and forlorn tableau greets visitors to the arid shores of this once-vast lake in Iran's far northwest. Rusting ships sit wedged in deep black mud. Stray dogs nibble on rotting planks from long-discarded beach chairs and derelict bungalows.

Lake Urmia, long counted among the world's largest saltwater lakes — almost 90 miles in length and stretching 34 miles at its widest point — is today a pitiful shadow of its former self.

Vast expanses of the onetime holiday haven have been transformed into stretches of sunbaked mud so solid that "pickup trucks and tractors can drive on it for miles," said Hojjat Jabbari, a scientist working in the environmental department in Urmia.

In the last two decades, experts say, a toxic combination of wasteful irrigation practices, the damming of feeder rivers, prolonged drought and a warming climate has accelerated the decline of the storied lake, noted in the historical accounts of various civilizations dating back millenniums.