Lake Urmia, an inland salt lake in Iran has dried up completely this past summer and Iranians are blaming electric cars for this environmental tragedy: “Flamingos won’t be visiting Iran anymore,” says Iranian activist Siavash Safavi who has been arrested in Iran for holding hands with his girlfriend. He now lives in Canada and can talk freely against the regime without getting arrested: “The mullahs in Iran have dried out Urmia Lake, the biggest salt lake in the world, so that the Chinese can get lithium from the lake bed.
“This regime is not just killing Iranians. It’s killing Iran.”
The Iranian Government denies that China is extracting lithium from the salt lake and says that the Chinese trucks seen last month at Lake Urmia were hauling out salt. Iranian watchdog journalists warn America that the Iranian regime is likely mining sanctioned minerals that could be used for nuclear enrichment.
Some of these minerals may include lithium that will be sold to China for electric vehicle batteries. As there is no free press in Iran, and researchers are in danger if they report the truth, we can’t know for certain.
Why has Lake Urmia dried up?
Experts in Iran, and at NASA, believe that excessive and illegal groundwater extraction and using the water of the once bountiful Zarrineh Rud − which feeds Urmia Lake − for irrigating their apple trees have contributed to the lake shrinking by nearly 95 percent in volume over the past 20 years.
Chris Perry, a water irrigation expert who worked for the World Bank tells Green Prophet: “The lake has dried up because of excessive, uncontrolled access to groundwater.
“The water is used for irrigation, and the transpiration from the crops is lost to the local hydrological system. Converting to drip to “save” water allows a larger area to be irrigated and hence an increase in consumption. The attached report (links to PDF) addresses this issue in many countries including Iran.”
See a time lapse of Lake Urmia disappearing:
In 2015 Iran started a water transfer to replenish Lake Urmia, and water can be seen returning to the lake in 2020. But by 2023 NASA had captured that Lake Urmia was completely dry.
A few years after a fresh influx of water raised its levels, the large lake has nearly gone dry and dried out completely in August 2023.
Lake Urmia was the largest lake in the Middle East and was one of the largest hypersaline lakes.
According to NASA the reasons are several. Consecutive droughts due to climate change, agricultural water use, and dam construction on rivers feeding into the lake have contributed to the decline.
A shrinking Lake Urmia has implications for ecological and human health, says NASA: “The lake, its islands, and surrounding wetlands comprise valuable habitat and are recognized as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, Ramsar site, and national park. The area provides breeding grounds for waterbirds such as flamingos, white pelicans, and white-headed ducks, as well as a stopover for migratory species.
“However, with low lake levels, what water remains becomes more saline and taxes the populations of brine shrimp and other food sources for larger animals.”
A shrinking lake also increases the likelihood of dust from the exposed lakebed becoming swept up by winds and degrading air quality. And recent studies have linked the low water levels in Lake Urmia with respiratory health impacts among the locals.
Some 25 years ago, as many as 300,000 flamingos visited Lake Urmia feeding on small organisms such as Artemia that live in the lake. It is also their breeding ground. In 2018 there were a reported 35,000 flamingos on the lake, and in 2023 there was a reported 10,000 flamingos returning. The decline of numbers in the last 25 years do not look good.
More on Iranian water issues:
Saltier than the Dead Sea, Lake Orumiyeh is in Trouble
Iran’s water problems are worse than war
