Climate Change Study in West Azerbaijan Province Regarding Lake Urmia Restoration

In order to offer a way to save Lake Urmia, first the present climatic conditions and the factors that affect its drying should be identified. Then its rehabilitation may be undertaken by managing these factors. Factors like increasing water uses (surface and groundwater) from the Lake Urmia basin, climate changes, dam construction on the rivers feeding the Lake Urmia and the Causeway Bridge play role in Lake Urmia drying. Each of the mentioned factors leads to natural feedback that its role should also be considered in a systemic approach. In this study, different hydrological time series variables such as river discharge, water level of the Lake Urmia, air temperature, precipitation, quantitative and qualitative parameters of the surface and groundwater, evaporation from the Lake Urmia basin as well as the procedures of modeling and forecasting, trend analysis, hydrological drought, meteorological drought and zoning have been investigated. According to the results a decreasing trend was detected for the river discharges, precipitation, evaporation and the Lake Urmia water level series while an increasing trend was observed in the qualitative parameters of ground and surface waters and river deficiency volume series. Results obtained from the modeling of the Lake Urmia water level showed a climatological opportunity in restoration of the Lake Urmia. Finally, by studying the quantitative, qualitative, hydrometric and synoptic parameters, some solutions were presented for the Lake Urmia restoration.