Aziz Art May 2016
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Modern ecology<br />
Lake Urmia is home to some 212<br />
species of birds, 41 reptiles, 7<br />
amphibians, and 27 species of<br />
mammals, including the Iranian<br />
yellow deer. It is an internationally<br />
registered protected area as both a<br />
UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and a<br />
Ramsar site. The Iranian Dept. of<br />
Environment has designated most<br />
of the lake as a National Park.<br />
The lake is marked by more than a<br />
hundred small, rocky islands, which<br />
serve as stopover points during the<br />
migrations of several wild birds<br />
including flamingos, pelicans,<br />
spoonbills, ibises, storks, shelducks,<br />
avocets, stilts, and gulls. A recent<br />
drought has significantly decreased<br />
the annual amount of water the<br />
lake receives. This in turn has<br />
increased the salinity of the lake's<br />
water, lowering the lake viability as<br />
home to thousands of migratory<br />
birds including the large flamingo<br />
populations. The salinity has<br />
particularly increased in the half of<br />
the lake north of the causeway.<br />
By virtue of its high salinity, the lake<br />
no longer sustains any fish species.<br />
Nonetheless, Lake Urmia is<br />
considered a significant natural<br />
habitat of <strong>Art</strong>emia, which serve as<br />
food source for the migratory birds<br />
such as flamingos.In early 2013, the<br />
then-head of the Iranian <strong>Art</strong>emia<br />
Research Center was quoted that<br />
<strong>Art</strong>emia Urmiana had gone extinct<br />
due to the drastic increases in<br />
salinity. However this assessment<br />
has been contradicted.<br />
Falling level and increasing salinity<br />
The lake is a major barrier between<br />
two of the most important cities in<br />
West Azerbaijan and East<br />
Azerbaijan provinces, Urmia and<br />
Tabriz. A project to build a highway<br />
across the lake was initiated in the<br />
1970s but was abandoned after the<br />
Iranian Revolution of 1979, having<br />
finished a 15 km causeway with an<br />
unbridged gap. The project was<br />
revived in the early 2000s, and was<br />
completed in November 2008 with<br />
the opening of the 1.5 km Urmia<br />
Lake Bridge across the remaining<br />
gap.The highly saline environment<br />
is already heavily rusting the steel<br />
on the bridge despite anticorrosion<br />
treatment. Experts have warned<br />
that the construction of the<br />
causeway and bridge, together with<br />
a series of ecological factors, will<br />
eventually lead to the drying up of the<br />
lake
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