Adaptation of Eastern Regions of Urmia Lake Basin to Water Crisis

Destruction of Urmia Lake (UL) has caused a lot of social-economic and environmental problems in Iran. It should be considered that agricultural sector and rural regions have low adaptive capacity to this crisis.Therefore, this study was designed to assess adaptive capacity of Eastern regions of Lake Urmia basin to Water Crisis (68 regions). Data were collected using documentary and survey research methods and adaptive capacity of eastern regions was calculated based on average of five capitals. Results revealed that adaptive capacity of eastern regions were divided into three classes: low, moderate and high. Also, most regions had low adaptive capacity and only three regions had high adaptive capacity to water crisis. The results also showed all variables of physical and natural capitals made a significant difference in the adaptive capacity of three groups. This study provides recommendation to national and regional Lake Urmia Restoration program for adaptive capacity building and sustainable development in the study regions.