TEHRAN — The volume of water in Lake Urmia, northwestern Iran, has increased by 810 million cubic meters compared to the same date last year, director general of West Azarbaijan regional water company has said. 

Lake Urmia, shared between West Azarbaijan and East Azarbaijan provinces, used to be the largest salt-water lake in the Middle East. It was a home to many migratory and indigenous animals including flamingos, pelicans, egrets and ducks and attracted hundreds of tourists every year who had taken a trip to take advantage of the therapeutic properties of the lake.

However, the lake started to shrink in 1990s. The drastic decrease of the lake water level over the past 20 years has seriously affected the lake’s wildlife and human ecology.

Currently the total volume of water in the Lake measures at 2,000,060,000 cubic meters and the lake surface area stands at 2,311 square kilometers, ISNA news agency quoted Kiyomars Daneshjoo as saying on Saturday. 

Alireza Shari’at, head of monitoring and supervision department of the Lake Urmia restoration program said in September 2018, that in order to maintain the Lake Urmia ecological balance of 14 billion cubic meters over the next 10 years, an annual amount of 3.3 billion cubic meters of water is required. 

MQ/MG