One of the most important environmental problems in Iran is the destruction and drying of Urmia Lake (UL). UL is one of the main causes of suitable weather for agricultural boom and tourist attraction and it should be considered that the villagers exposed to UL drying have a strong dependence on vulnerable resources such as water, air, soil and plants for their livelihoods and have low adaptive capacity with this crisis for reasons such as poverty, lack of awareness and lack of infrastructure. This study was designed to evaluate the vulnerability of rural households to UL drying in the Shabestar region. The vulnerability was calculated based on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) definition and using vulnerability index (VI). Research population included rural households of Shabestar region (N = 19,249) and about 347 households were selected as the research sample using multistage cluster sampling technique. Results showed that the average score of respondents was 0.455 (moderate) in exposure, 0.359 (moderate to low) in sensitivity, 0.404 (moderate to low) in adaptive capacity and finally, the vulnerability index (VI) was 0.470 (range of 0 to 1). 12.8% of households had low, 70.5% had medium and 16.7% had high vulnerability towards UL drying.

No abstract

The drying of Urmia Lake, the largest inland lake in Iran, is one of the greatest ecological disasters in Iran, and it was repeatedly included on the agenda of national and international conventions. The aim of the current study was to apply the system dynamics methodology to analyse rural households' vulnerability to the Urmia Lake drying. The result of the first phase (strategy collection) indicated that five strategies were proposed by stakeholders: ‘To reduce the population of the region’, ‘To reduce the crop area and agricultural activities’, ‘To modify the cultivation pattern and growing crops with low water needs’, ‘To use new irrigation systems’ and ‘To create alternative agricultural livelihoods with less dependence on damaged resources’. The second phase used Vensim software and indicated that the best strategy to reduce households' vulnerability to the drying of Urmia Lake was ‘To create alternative agricultural livelihoods with less dependence on damaged resources’.