M. Behzad ATAIE-ASHTIANI

Lake Urmia is the second-largest hyper-saline lake in the world. Losing about eight meters of water level over a 20-year period from 1996 to 2016 marked Lake Urmia as one of the regional environmental crises. This condition has threatened biota life, intensified desertification around the lake, and raised social concerns by adversely impacting the inhabitants’ health and economy. In 2013, the Urmia Lake Restoration National Committee (ULRNC) started implementing certain management practices to stop the drying trend of Lake Urmia, resulting in the cease of water level drop and stabilization of LU condition in 2016. An increase in water level and a relative improvement in Lake Urmia condition has been observed since 2017. It is an undecided and controversial issue whether the recent positive trend of Lake Urmia has been due to the ULRNC activities, or it is a natural contribution of climate factors variations. The talk sheds some light on this issue and describes the Lake Urmia crisis and examines the success of the restoration pl