Environmental effects of the causeway on water and salinity balance in Lake Urmia

Hemmati, Mohammad; Ahmadi, Hojjat; Hamidi, Sajad Ahmad; Naderkhanloo, Vahid

doi:10.1016/j.rsma.2021.101756

Cited by 10 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…In this way, conservation agriculture and the use of pressurized irrigation systems are a priority for the agricultural sector in order to conserve water. As our earlier studies pointed out the intensive water scarcity in this area [68][69][70], our results should provide key information for decision-makers and support them in pursuing sustainable development in the northwest of Iran. The results will also be useful for mitigating the environmental impact of the Urmia Lake drought and prioritizing areas for initiatives that halt degradation and implement restoration strategies.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 56%

A GIS-Based Spatiotemporal Impact Assessment of Droughts in the Hyper-Saline Urmia Lake Basin on the Hydro-Geochemical Quality of Nearby Aquifers

2022

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Urmia Lake is a hyper-saline lake in northwestern Iran that has been drying up since 2005. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the water quality in aquifers that are the main source of fresh water for the eastern plains Urmia Lake, which has been drying up due to intensive land use/cover changes and climate change. We evaluated hydro-geochemical data and factors contributing to aquifer pollution and quality variation for nine aquifers in the vicinity of Urmia Lake during the dry and wet seasons from 2000–2020. Our methodology was based on the analysis of 10 years of data from 356 deep and semi-deep wells using GIS spatial analysis, multivariate statistical analysis, and agglomerative hierarchical clustering. We developed a Water Quality Index (WQI) for spatiotemporal assessment of the status of the aquifers. In doing so, we highlighted the value of combining Principal Component Analysis (PCA), WQI, and GIS to determine the hydro-geochemical attributes of the aquifers. We found that the groundwater in central parts of the study area was unsuitable for potable supplies. Anthropogenic sources of contamination, such as chemical fertilizers, industrial waste, and untreated sewage water, might be the key factors causing excessive concentrations of contaminants affecting the water quality. The PCA results showed that over 80% of the total variance could be attributed to two principal factors for most aquifers and three principal factors for two of the aquifers. We employed GIS-based spatial analysis to map groundwater quality in the study area. Based on the WQI values, approximately 48% of groundwater samples were identified as poor to unsuitable for drinking purposes. Results of this study provide a better hydro-geochemical understanding of the multiple aquifers that require preventive action against groundwater damage. We conclude that the combined approach of using a multivariate statistical technique and spatial analysis is effective for determining the factors controlling groundwater quality.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 56%

A GIS-Based Spatiotemporal Impact Assessment of Droughts in the Hyper-Saline Urmia Lake Basin on the Hydro-Geochemical Quality of Nearby Aquifers

2022

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“…1 d). The excessive discharge of aquifers and the disruption of the groundwater resources can supplant the interphase threshold and lead to saltwater intrusion into adjacent aquifers, which is also acknowledged by previous studies 30 (see Supplementary Figs. 4 and 5 for spatial distribution of the wells and trend of groundwater discharge).…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 58%

“…Nowadays, the tangible results of this can be observed as groundwater salinization, and land subsidence take hold in the LUB 21 – 27 . Based on the groundwater level simulation, the intensive groundwater extraction for agricultural and industrial activities has resulted in at least 5–15 m of groundwater drawdown, which is a decline of about 50–60% over the past three decades 28 – 30 . Figure 5 shows the results of spatiotemporal groundwater quality modeling for 2000–2020 based on available monitoring data, including samples and chemical analysis, from 856 wells in the LUB.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scenario-based analysis of the impacts of lake drying on food production in the Lake Urmia Basin of Northern Iran

Feizizadeh

Lakes

Omarzadeh

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

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In many parts of the world, lake drying is caused by water management failures, while the phenomenon is exacerbated by climate change. Lake Urmia in Northern Iran is drying up at such an alarming rate that it is considered to be a dying lake, which has dire consequences for the whole region. While salinization caused by a dying lake is well understood and known to influence the local and regional food production, other potential impacts by dying lakes are as yet unknown. The food production in the Urmia region is predominantly regional and relies on local water sources. To explore the current and projected impacts of the dying lake on food production, we investigated changes in the climatic conditions, land use, and land degradation for the period 1990–2020. We examined the environmental impacts of lake drought on food production using an integrated scenario-based geoinformation framework. The results show that the lake drought has significantly affected and reduced food production over the past three decades. Based on a combination of cellular automaton and Markov modeling, we project the food production for the next 30 years and predict it will reduce further. The results of this study emphasize the critical environmental impacts of the Urmia Lake drought on food production in the region. We hope that the results will encourage authorities and environmental planners to counteract these issues and take steps to support food production. As our proposed integrated geoinformation approach considers both the extensive impacts of global climate change and the factors associated with dying lakes, we consider it to be suitable to investigate the relationships between environmental degradation and scenario-based food production in other regions with dying lakes around the world.

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“…We can observe the detrimental effects of climate change, including soil salinity and degradation, on the natural environment of the dying, hyper-saline Urmia Lake. The severity of the Urmia Lake drought is intensified by other subsidiary influences of climate change, such as the rapid depletion of groundwater, decreasing groundwater quality, soil salinization, loss of soil fertility and intensive soil degradation [29,30]. The environmental issues caused by this lake drought are expected to be powerful enough to cause potential future migration and human displacement of susceptible rural communities from affected areas to other regions of the country [31,32].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of the Urmia Lake Drought on Soil Salinity and Degradation Risk: An Integrated Geoinformatics Analysis and Monitoring Approach

et al. 2022

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Recent improvements in earth observation technologies and Geographical Information System (GIS) based spatial analysis methods require us to examine the efficiency of the different data-driven methods and decision rules for soil salinity monitoring and degradation mapping. The main objective of this study was to analyze the environmental impacts of the Lake Urmia drought on soil salinity and degradation risk in the plains surrounding the hyper-saline lake. We monitored the impacts of the lake drought on soil salinity by applying spatiotemporal indices to time-series satellite images (1990–2020) in Google Earth Engine environment. We also computed the soil salinity ratio to validate the results and determine the most efficient soil salinity monitoring techniques. We then mapped the soil degradation risk based on GIS spatial decision-making methods. Our results indicated that the Urmia Lake drought is leading to the formation of extensive salt lands, which impact the fertility of the farmlands. The land affected by soil salinity has increased from 2.86% in 1990 to 16.68% in 2020. The combined spectral response index, with a performance of 0.95, was the most efficient image processing method to assess soil salinity. The soil degradation risk map showed that 38.45% of the study area has a high or very high risk of degradation, which is a significant threat to food production. This study presents an integrated geoinformation approach for time-series soil salinity monitoring and degradation risk mapping that supports future studies by comparing the efficiency of different methods as state of the art. From a practical perspective, the results also provide key information for decision-makers, authorities, and local stakeholders in their efforts to mitigate the environmental impacts of lake drought and sustain the food production to sustain the 7.3 million residents.

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Environmental effects of the causeway on water and salinity balance in Lake Urmia

Cited by 10 publications

References 18 publications

A GIS-Based Spatiotemporal Impact Assessment of Droughts in the Hyper-Saline Urmia Lake Basin on the Hydro-Geochemical Quality of Nearby Aquifers

A GIS-Based Spatiotemporal Impact Assessment of Droughts in the Hyper-Saline Urmia Lake Basin on the Hydro-Geochemical Quality of Nearby Aquifers

Scenario-based analysis of the impacts of lake drying on food production in the Lake Urmia Basin of Northern Iran

Impacts of the Urmia Lake Drought on Soil Salinity and Degradation Risk: An Integrated Geoinformatics Analysis and Monitoring Approach

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