FAO and Urmia Lake Restoration Program (ULRP) have today (29 May 2016) organized an international meeting in Tehran on “Promoting Partnership on Water Resource Management” to expand collaboration between UN Agencies and donor countries with the aim of strengthening efforts to save Urmia Lake in Iran.

According to a press release published by the Representation of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in the Islamic Republic of Iran, by underscoring that water shortage in Iran has become more visible and tangible in recent years, in his opening remarks, Dr. Issa Kalantari, Secretary of Urmia Lake Restoration Commission (ULRC) warned that the majority of important wetlands have already dried up or are in the process of meeting this fate.

“Urmia Lake is no exception. Experts point to a number of factors contributing to the drying up of the Lake, including the reduction and changes in precipitation patterns over the last 20 years, increased water demand due to agricultural development and changing patterns in agricultural practices, as well as the cultivation of water intensive crops, and the lack of proper surface and ground water resource management including the illegal excessive withdrawal of surface water and ground water  ground water through illegal wells” he added. 

Dr. Pasquale Steduto, Deputy Regional Representative at the FAO Regional Office for Near East and North Africa (NENA) has also confirmed that the restoration of the Lake Urmia has required a significant reduction in water consumption in the basin.

“Irrigated agriculture as the major water consumer in the Urmia Lake basin, requires relevant reform such as halting further development and converting existing production systems and practices that reduces significantly water consumption while preserving the livelihood of the local communities” the high rank FAO official said.

He concluded his remarks by saying that achieving such results requires “courage”, “political willingness”, “perseverance” and a new “social compact”.

Mr. Gary Lewis, the UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Representative in the Islamic Republic of Iran together with Mr. Alessandro Amadio, the Representative of UNIDO in Iran and Ms. Niloofar Sadeghi, the UNESCO Progremme Officer for Natural Sciences have also attended the meeting and expressed their views on employing an inclusive approach for saving Urmia Lake and other water resources management issues in the country.

Ambassadors and delegations from, Japan, Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Australia, Denmark, Russia and representative from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Ministry of Energy, Department of Environment, Ministry of Jihad-e Agriculture, Sharif University and other national research institutes were among the active participants of the meeting. 

Iran is experiencing a severe escalation of water scarcity, similarly to several other countries of the Near East and North Africa Region, due to key drivers such as demographic growth, tendency to increase food self-sufficiency, urbanization expansion, energy demand and overall socio-economic development, further compounded by the negative impacts of climate change and the considerable degradation of water quality.

In the last decades, independence and self-sufficiency have characterized the development policies of Iran, with consequent fast expansion of agriculture, and mainly irrigated agriculture area (with over 8 Million ha, withdrawing more than 90% of renewable water resources, of which 62% are from groundwater and 38% from surface water), so that the consumptive use of water has increased exponentially.

In this context, the Urmia Lake (the Lake) (5000 km2) has faced intense pressure during the last decade and it is currently in a state of ecological crisis with major impacts on biodiversity and socio-economic conditions. It is a vast hyper-saline lake in North West Iran, formed in a natural depression at the lowest point within the closed Urmia Lake basin, where water comes in through several rivers but leaves only by evaporation.

Since 1995, the area and water level of the Lake have dramatically decreased and salt concentration increased. Many of its satellite wetlands have also been damaged by infrastructure and land conversion works, pollution and significant decrease of water inflows. These problems, exacerbated by a long period of drought, have an impact on region’s industrial and agricultural sectors and induced salt beds to be exposed by the Lake shrinkage and to be picked up by winds, creating a serious threat to the health of the inhabitants of the region. Such condition put at risk the biodiversity of the environment, cutting down the many benefits that the lake provides to the society.