Management of Rivers and Dams in Supplying and Delivering Water to Urmia Lake

Current water management will soon result in the drying crisis of the Urmia Lake¡ an internationally registered hyper-saline wetland¡ in Iran. The most priority is an action plan to deliver in-basin surface waters into the lake. The main aim of the present paper is to introduce the scientific and technical methods to supply and deliver water from the ten major rivers around the lake¡ in the order of 20 to 40% of potential annual flows from these rivers. The revision of the current water allocation for agricultural uses¡ emergency plan to reduce 40% of irrigation water¡ to lease farmers’ water-rights¡ to prevent illegal water intakes from the rivers¡ to release 30 to 40% of reserved water from 13 large dams around the lake¡ and to perform river improvement works to facilitate water delivery are necessary for saving the Urmia Lake. Long life and sustainable solution is to increase the rivers environmental flow allocations from existing 10% to 20% to 40% of their potential annual flows. The change in the volume of water regulation in the 13 operating dams¡ and the reduction of possible storage of water in the 11 under-construction dams are to be considered for the future restoration of the Urmia Lake.