Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

The shoaling problem of Lake Urmia is a matter of concern not only to the Iranian government, but also to the other countries and international organizations of the world.

UN Resident Coordinator Gary Lewis recently proposed ways to prevent the death of the world's largest saltwater lake, the Lake Urmia, IRNA news agency reported.

Lewis warned in his report that the slow death of the Lake Urmia signals a warning for the future.

Lake Urmia in northwestern Iran is experiencing its worst shoaling condition in many years, with over 70 percent of its water dried up. The level of the water has been decreasing since 1995.

Lewis said that he has recently visited the lake to see the situation first hand.

Warning that the lake "is drying up at an alarming rate," he said that the main problem was that the "outflow has vastly exceeded the inflow in recent years".

He also said that the water level kept declining as a result of a recent drought.

Iranian media outlets earlier quoted deputy Director of Iran's Water Resources Management Company, Yaqoub Hemmati as saying that the water input in the catchments of the Lake Urmia has decreased by 46 percent compared to the long-term average value, showing that reviving Lake Urmia is impossible.

Stressing the lake's "celebrated status," Lewis said that there were some ways to stop its speedy death.

"It is possible that what is happening to Lake Urmia is one of many vivid examples all over the planet that show how rapidly we humans can destroy our environment," Lewis said.

He noted that there was still time to help save Lake Urmia, but in order to realize that goal the Iranian government and people and the international community had to act immediately.

Referring to the shrinking of the lake's surface area in the past two decades (from 5,000 square kilometers to 2,000 square kilometers), he warned about the consequences of Lake Urmia's shoaling.

"In a nutshell, we are faced with the risk of a 'perfect storm': water scarcity, land degradation, and climate change all happening together," Lewis said.

He added that in order to fight such a dire situation, Iran needed to strengthen its current approaches to water and natural resources management, and develop climate-change-resilience in its various sectors at national and community level.

Referring to an UN-sponsored plan, Lewis said that since 2005, the "Wetlands Project", jointly implemented by the Iranian Government, the Global Environment Facility, and the UN Development Program (UNDP) has been providing a scientific data base for tracking the emerging environmental disaster in Urmia.

"The project has led to an improvement in Urmia-basin institutional arrangements to implement the management plans that can solve the problem. Crucially, public awareness of the existing threat has also increased as a result," Lewis said.

The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) has allocated $135 million to resolving the environmental problems of the Lake Urmia.

According to Lewis, the plan is currently offering the best prospect for halting and reversing the decline in the Urmia basin.

"But the main problem is still related to speed. All this is taking place far too slowly. To turn things around, we need to take a long-term view, but we also need to act quickly right now," Lewis said.

He said that in the long run, and in order to play its role in halting climate change, Iran needed to shift away from its current carbon-intensive development path to energy efficiency, conservation and the use of cleaner, renewable energy.

"We need to re-afforest decertified lands and improve sustainable livelihoods for people who live in the dried-up regions of Iran," Lewis said.

According to him, the real breakthrough will only happen if discussions on the impact of climate change went beyond a discourse between the technocrats and policy-makers.

"We need to build climate-change-resilience-thinking at community level," Lewis said.

He added that the public as a whole and especially young people needed to understand what was really at stake.

"In order to realize that, we need much more public discussions and awareness," he said.

The UN coordinator also mentioned four key measures that were easier in the short- to medium-term, including involving all interested groups in planning resource allocations for the future of Lake Urmia, putting a stop to treating water as an open resource and pricing it at its real value, stopping illegal harvesting of water, and questioning the idea of an inter-basin transfer of water.

Referring to the UN's role in efforts to save the Lake Urmia, Lewis said that given recent developments at the UN General Assembly in New York and elsewhere, the agency could support the climate change resilience initiatives "as a mark of its willingness to engage with Iran in an area of common interest at a time of immense diplomatic opportunity".

"Finally, the UN can also play an active role in exchanging lessons learnt over time, and also the use of best practices. These efforts can add to those at the local level in order to support the "Save Urmia" campaign," Lewis said.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has established a working group to tackle the issue of saving Lake Urmia.

Rohani has also given a special order to suspend work on building a dam around Lake Urmia.

Lake Urmia is the third largest salt water lake on earth, with a surface area of 6,000 square kilometers. During the immigrations of birds, the lake becomes their temporary home. The lake's shoaling has had great impact on the flora and fauna of the region. Environment experts say that the measures taken by the Iranian government to save the lake are not enough.

The project of directing 600 million cubic meters of water from Araz River into Lake Urmia was launched during a visit by former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and government officials to Tabriz in 2010. Some $1.2 billion is to be allocated to implementing this project.

In September 2011, the Iranian government allocated $900 million to preventing Lake Urmia's drying up.