By December 2025, Lake Urmia has effectively ceased to exist as a natural ecosystem. The body of water that, as recently as the late twentieth century, remained Iran’s largest lake and one of the largest salt lakes in the Middle East has lost nearly all of its surface area. What remains of what was once a single, continuous lake are scattered shallow pools that no longer perform any climatic, ecological, or economic function. This outcome is not the result of a natural disaster, but the product of a prolonged and systematic state water policy.
Historically, Lake Urmia covered approximately 5,000–6,000 square kilometers, with a length of 120–130 kilometers and a width of up to 50 kilometers. Situated at an elevation of about 1,274 meters above sea level, it was an endorheic lake whose stability depended on river inflows and groundwater. Before the onset of degradation, its water volume was estimated at 20–30 billion cubic meters, with earlier assessments placing it as high as 31–33 billion cubic meters. Even in years of minimal precipitation, water levels remained relatively stable due to subsurface inflows, demonstrating the natural resilience of the ecosystem.
That balance was destroyed by deliberate management decisions. Beginning in the late 1990s, a large-scale hydraulic engineering program was implemented across the lake’s basin. Dozens of dams and reservoirs were constructed on rivers feeding Urmia, including Chygati, Tataou, Mahabadchai, Shahrchai, Gadarchai, Aji Chai, Sofi Chai, Leylan Chai, Gala Chai, Uskuchai, Tufarganchai, and others. In total, the channels of more than two dozen rivers were blocked, and the number of dams reached approximately forty. As a result, surface inflow was almost entirely intercepted and removed from the lake’s natural water balance.
At the same time, more than 100,000 deep wells were drilled across the watershed. This led to the depletion of underground aquifers that had previously compensated for seasonal fluctuations in rainfall. Once groundwater support was lost, the lake became fully dependent on managed surface inflow—an inflow that had, in practice, been shut off.
In parallel, the state expanded irrigated agriculture. The area of irrigated farmland in the region increased to roughly 600,000 hectares, while traditional, water-intensive, and inefficient irrigation methods remained in use. Water extraction therefore rose steadily, while inflow to the lake was reduced to a residual level. Lake Urmia was incorporated into a resource allocation model in which its survival was not treated as a priority.
Further degradation followed direct interference with the lake’s internal hydrodynamics. An engineered causeway was built across the lake, effectively dividing it into two parts and disrupting natural water circulation. This accelerated localized drying, increased salinity, and stripped the system of its capacity for self-regulation. Island ecosystems also collapsed: of the lake’s 102 islands, with a combined area exceeding 33,000 hectares, most lost their connection to water and their economic function.
By the early 2010s, the process had become irreversible. More than 60 percent of the lake’s surface area had already disappeared by 2011. In subsequent years, water volume declined at an accelerated pace. From approximately 33 billion cubic meters in the late 1970s, the lake’s volume fell to less than 1 billion cubic meters by the early 2020s. In some years, losses amounted to several billion cubic meters. Authorities recorded annual declines in water level, including a 16 percent drop in a single year, while flooding simultaneously affected settlements in the basin—an outcome directly linked to the destruction of the natural runoff accumulation system.
State responsibility is evident not only in the original decisions, but also in crisis management. For more than fifteen years, programs to “revive” the lake were announced, commissions were established, and funding figures ranging from tens to hundreds of millions of dollars were cited. These measures, however, failed to restore water inflow. Parliamentary initiatives aimed at meaningful restoration were rejected, and policy priorities gradually shifted toward adapting to the lake’s disappearance, including discussions of relocating local populations rather than preserving the ecosystem.
A central example was the water transfer project from the Zab River, launched in 2015 and presented as the main instrument for saving Lake Urmia. The project envisioned supplying up to 600–650 million cubic meters of water annually from the Kanisib reservoir. Despite claims of more than 90 percent completion and repeated promises of commissioning, the canal never entered full operation. Structural defects, including hundreds of meters of cracks in the tunnel body, were not remedied, and no effective water supply to the lake was achieved.
Equally revealing is the refusal to direct water to the lake even during periods of seasonal surplus. In winter and early spring, when agriculture objectively requires less water and precipitation exceeded 140 millimeters, controlled releases toward Urmia were not carried out. This indicates not a lack of resources, but a deliberate choice of priorities.
The environmental consequences are severe and long-term. Up to 10 billion tons of salt have accumulated on the dried lakebed. As desiccation continues, these deposits turn into airborne salt dust, generating persistent salt and dust storms, accelerating soil degradation, and threatening the habitability of vast areas. The ecosystem has been destroyed: endemic species, including Artemia urmiana, have lost the conditions necessary for survival. Tourist, therapeutic, and port infrastructure has vanished entirely. The regional economic base has collapsed, and residents of at least forty settlements have already been forced to leave their homes.
Environmental protests that began in the early 2010s were treated by the state as a political threat and suppressed through force. This eliminated public oversight and any possibility of policy correction at an early stage.
In sum, the disappearance of Lake Urmia by 2025 is not the result of a climatic anomaly or a natural catastrophe, but of a consistent and reproducible model of state water governance. The blocking of rivers, depletion of groundwater, expansion of water-intensive agriculture, destruction of the lake’s internal hydrodynamics, simulation of restoration programs, and refusal to use available water even in favorable periods led to the loss of the country’s largest natural lake. Urmia was not dried out by nature; it was administratively removed from the system of priorities—and ultimately, it disappeared.
