TEHRAN - Satellite images of Lake Urmia show that the water transfer plan has been able to solve the problem of reduced water input to a great extent, Hassan Dalirian, a spokesman for the Iranian Space Agency, has said.

Therefore, the water level of Lake Urmia has significantly increased, he added, IRNA reported.

“The Organization has been monitoring the lake since the beginning of the water transfer project from the Kani Sib Dam to the Lake.

After about 3 months since the start of the project, we have achieved notable results in this regard.”

Lake Urmia in the northwestern West Azarbaijan province started to dry up in the 2000s.

The lake is the largest lake in West Asia and the sixth-largest Salt Lake in the world with a water surface area of 5,000 to 6,000 square kilometers.

Provincial officials have said that water levels in the lake will increase to above two billion cubic meters in the near future.

The figure comes just more than a month after the government inaugurated a project to transfer water from a neighboring dam as part of its efforts to revive the lake.

The construction of a tunnel with a length of 36 kilometers to transfer water from the Dam to the Lake started in 2015, IRNA reported.

Some 35 trillion rials (about $70 million) have been spent on the project.

In the first phase, 300 million cubic meters of water are projected to enter Lake Urmia every year.

The second phase is going to come on stream in the current Iranian calendar year that started on March 21, increasing the volume of water to 600 million cubic meters.

West Azarbaijan Governor General Mohammad- Sadeq Motamedian told IRNA that the supply of water from Kani Sib Dam to Lake Urmia had reached 35 cubic meters per second, adding that the amount could reach well above 50 cubic meters per second with continued rains in the region.

That comes on top of plans to transfer 200 million cubic meters of water per year from sewage treatment facilities in the metropolitan cities of Tabriz and Urmia to prevent the lake from drying up.

Experts believe it would take some five years for Lake Urmia to take some 3.4 billion cubic meters of water it needs to reach ecologically sustainable levels.

The water level at Lake Urmia is continuously rising thanks to recent rainfalls and releasing water from a neighboring dam.

On March 27, it was announced that the current level of Lake Urmia is 1,270.26 meters, an increase of more than 13 centimeters compared to six months ago and the rise will continue, IRNA reported.

The area of the lake has also increased by more than 311 square kilometers, reaching 1,241 square kilometers.

The volume of water at Lake Urmia is now around 1.570 billion cubic meters, which has increased by 330 million cubic meters.

Some 5 trillion rials (about $10 million) have been recently earmarked for speeding up the implementation of the Lake Urmia revival plan.

The lake is designated for the List of Wetlands of International Importance, Ramsar Site, as well as a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve, which is a protected area with the aim of conserving nature and culture in the region and community development.

Based on the studies and according to the statement of the Lake Urmia Restoration Program, 18 percent of the drying was due to climate change and 82 percent was due to the mismanagement of water resources in the catchment area, Somayeh Rafiei, a member of the Majlis (Iranian Parliament), has said.

MG