Monitoring Urmia Lake Water Level Changes Using Satellite Images

Investigating the changes in the water level of the lakes in order to protect them in terms of the importance, nature and position of these water bodies and as a natural heritage in recent years between countries at national and regional level has gained special importance .The drying crisis of Lake Urmia with an area of about half a million hectares as Iran's largest inland lake has become a national issue due to its consequences. Due to the changes in precipitation and temperature and the occurrence of severe droughts and wetlands in this basin and its morphological features (low coastal slope) its elevation level is subject to many fluctuations and changes .In recent years, the development of water resources projects, and in particular the construction of reservoir dams on the rivers leading to the lake, has had a major impact on the water inlet and ultimately its water level.In this study, we used and processed Landsat 7 and 8 satellite weather data (including ETM + and OLI sensors) from 2001 to 2019 to evaluate the changes in the Urmia Lake area. Different time periods were extracted. The results show that the area of Lake Urmia declined from 4346.71 sq km in 2001 to 2285.76 sq km in 2015 and increased to 3705.88 sq km in 2019. Lake water volatility also declined by 47.39