Assessing the consequences of drying of Lake Urmia on the economic indicators of the surrounding villages

The drying up of Lake Urmia has caused crises and social, economic and environmental hazards in the surrounding villages of East and West Azerbaijan provinces. Natural phenomena and human factors have played an important and effective role in the drying of the lake, so the drying of Lake Urmia can have harmful and irreversible effects on the villagers, the villages around Lake Urmia. The purpose of this study is to assess the consequences of the drying of Lake Urmia on the economic indicators of the surrounding villages (reduction of employment, increase of poverty, increase of unemployment and decrease of income and decrease of investment and savings). The method of this research is descriptive-analytical and the data have been collected in the form of library and survey (questionnaire). The statistical population of the study is the surrounding villages of East Azerbaijan and West Azerbaijan provinces, including 25,648 people and 7,600 households. Cochran's formula was used to calculate the sample size. Also, using Cronbach's alpha, the reliability of the questionnaire was calculated to be 0.83%. In analyzing the data of this study, Spss23 software and one-sample t-test were used and the results of one-sample t-test in the surrounding villages show that among the economic dimensions of indicators of increasing poverty and reducing the rate Employment has the highest impact, as well as indicators of rising unemployment, declining savings and declining incomes have the least impact on the drying up of Lake Urmia. Therefore, by taking measures such as creating places and resorts along the lake to attract tourists and building a refinery and packaging of salt in the lake for export to other countries can create employment for residents and prevent their migration. Therefore, by taking measures such as creating places and resorts along the lake to attract tourists and building a refinery and packaging of salt in the lake for export to other countries can create employment for residents and prevent their migration