Great Salt Lake's Iranian 'twin' is drying up


15 photos
Save Story
Leer en español

Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

ANTELOPE ISLAND STATE PARK — It's an inland sea of nearly 2,000 square miles with extremely salty water supporting a delicate web of life and providing natural resources for important industries.

That may appear to be a description of Utah's Great Salt Lake. In fact, though, it describes a lake in Iran that is astonishingly similar to Utah's famous inland sea. The two salt lakes, on opposite sides of the world, are so nearly identical that scientists from both countries are working together to help them survive.

The major difference is that Urmia Lake — Iran's largest inland lake — is in a desperate crisis and in danger of drying up completely. "Yeah, that is a really severe problem for us," said Ali Chavosian, a Tehran-based scientist for UNICEF. "Unfortunately when we realized that the lake was shrinking, it was a bit late."

It may seem that Americans and Iranians are usually at odds and seldom agree. But in this case, experts from both countries are working together and have a joint warning for Utah: the same dire fate could happen to Utah's Great Salt Lake.

The Great Salt Lake has also been shrinking in recent years, but far less dramatically than Urmia Lake.

"It's not too late," said professor Wayne Wurtsbaugh of Utah State University, as he briefed a delegation of Iranian scientists visiting the the Great Salt Lake. "We have enough time. We can think about this."

On the positive side, Wurtsbaugh said, one purpose of the visit by Iranian scientists was to take home lessons from Utah. "They look at the Great Salt Lake as, 'Oh, you guys are managing the Great Salt Lake so well. We want to learn from you.' Which I think they can," the professor said.

Chavoshian said his nation has launched emergency measures to restore Urmia Lake.


"...we would like to share our experiences with Urmia Lake and deliver this message to you: If you don't do the prevention measures, if you don't consider the lake serious and you don't start action immediately, you might face the similar situation of Urmia Lake." Ali Chavosian, Tehran-based scientist

"Maybe we can learn some lessons from you," he said. "At the same time, we would like to share our experiences with Urmia Lake and deliver this message to you: If you don't do the prevention measures, if you don't consider the lake serious and you don't start action immediately, you might face the similar situation of Urmia Lake."

As Chavosian and a dozen other Iranian scientists traveled along the causeway to Antelope Island, they marveled at how much the Great Salt Lake resembles Urmia Lake — the old Urmia Lake, before it began drying up. Many square miles of mudflats and dried lake-bed near Anteleope Island looked all too familiar to the Iranians.

"Unfortunately right now, we have lost almost 80 percent of Urmia Lake's surface area and almost all living species in the lake," Chavosian said. "It's really a terrible situation."

"It's almost lost," Wurtsbaugh said of Urmia Lake, "and it's too salty for brine shrimp or brine flies. They've lost their flamingoes, other birds."

Those unloved swarms of brine flies and enormous rafts of brine-shrimp eggs are the foundation of the web of life at the Great Salt Lake, as well. They are crucial elements in the food chain that supports migrating birds.

"And we get two-and-a-half, three million birds, visiting the lake each year," Wurtsbaugh said.

Wurtsbaugh, who traveled to Iran last year to study Urmia Lake, said it's remarkably similar to the Great Salt Lake in its geology, elevation, size and depth. Both lakes are divided by causeways. On a map, even their shapes are startlingly similar, at least before Urmia Lake began to vanish.

Although it supported significant industries, Urmia Lake was named an Iranian national park in 1967. But 3.5 million Iranians live nearby. Since about the year 2000, that population's increasing demand for water — especially for growing crops — has caused much of the lake's shrinkage.

KSL-TV

The dire situation has turned into a big political issue in Iran. The country's current president, Hassan Rouhani, campaigned on a promise that his first priority would be to restore Urmia Lake.

But Chavoshian says restoration will take a huge amount of time and money because Iran waited too long.

"Regarding the Great Salt Lake, I believe as soon as you could start it would be better," Chavoshian said. "You could actually concentrate on prevention measures. That would be much better than to concentrate on restoration measures."

Wurtsbaugh says a shrinking Great Salt Lake is even a potential health issue because the dry lake-bed might generate big dust problems. He says Utahns need to find ways to conserve water instead of diverting more and more from the rivers that feed the Great Salt Lake.

"Maybe we don't need to water our lawns as much," Wurtsbaugh said, "or we can have different types of agriculture that don't use as much water so that we can live in a little bit better balanced state with it."

Noting the long-range proposals to dam and divert water flowing into the lake from the Bear River, Wurtsbaugh said, "There's a lot of momentum moving forward for water development and the Great Salt Lake needs to be part of that discussion."

The two salt lakes in Iran and Utah are not the only ones with troubled futures. The Iranian scientists toured three others in California. Mono Lake, the Salton Sea and Owens Lake have all shriveled severely due to water diversions for cities and agriculture. Wurtsbaugh said there are numerous salt lakes around the world and nearly all are facing similar threats: more and more people needing more and more water.

Photos

Most recent Utah stories

Related topics

Utah
John Hollenhorst

    STAY IN THE KNOW

    Get informative articles and interesting stories delivered to your inbox weekly. Subscribe to the KSL.com Trending 5.
    By subscribing, you acknowledge and agree to KSL.com's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

    KSL Weather Forecast