Aral Sea syndrome desiccates Lake Urmia: Call for action

AghaKouchak, Amir; Norouzi, Hamidreza; Madani, Kaveh; Mirchi, Ali; Azarderakhsh, M.; Nazemi, Ali; Nasrollahi, Nasrin; Farahmand, Alireza; Mehran, Ali; Hasanzadeh, Elmira

doi:10.1016/j.jglr.2014.12.007

Cited by 295 publications

(148 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…These water level reductions were intensified by an increase in the frequency The water level in Dorge Sangi has been influenced by the drastic changes in the water level of Lake Urmia, located in the northern border of the study area. Decreases in the extent of Lake Urmia to about 10% of its original size in the last decade have been reported [19,20] as a critical transition toward an alternative state-a salt pan-which is similar to the catastrophic death of the Aral Sea [21]. The variation of the water level in Lake Urmia, derived from Satellite Radar Altimetry data of Jason-3, Jason-1 and TOPEX/P [22] (Figure 2A), shows that this ecosystem dried completely around 2010, and water level fluctuations were lost afterward.…”

Section: Study Sitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The SPI is a meteorological drought index, recommended by the World Meteorological Organization and measures normalized anomalies in precipitation [24]. The drought periods were not the only reason for reductions in the hydroperiods of the basin [21,23]; the over-use of water wells, instead of using surface water runoff, and filling of surface water canals with sediments (which cut off water flow to the wetlands) led to even further reductions in the water balance of the ecosystem and water level fluctuations. Water level fluctuations may be one of the reasons for the regime shift in Dorge Sangi, as it has negative impacts on species richness [25], and aquatic habitats [26].…”

Section: Study Sitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Remotely-Sensed Early Warning Signals of a Critical Transition in a Wetland Ecosystem

et al. 2017

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Abstract:The response of an ecosystem to external drivers may not always be gradual and reversible. Discontinuous and sometimes irreversible changes, called 'regime shifts' or 'critical transitions', can occur. The likelihood of such shifts is expected to increase for a variety of ecosystems, and it is difficult to predict how close an ecosystem is to a critical transition. Recent modelling studies identified indicators of impending regime shifts that can be used to provide early warning signals of a critical transition. The identification of such transitions crucially depends on the ability to monitor key ecosystem variables, and their success may be limited by lack of appropriate data. Moreover, empirical demonstrations of the actual functioning of these indicators in real-world ecosystems are rare. This paper presents the first study which uses remote sensing data to identify a critical transition in a wetland ecosystem. In this study, we argue that a time series of remote sensing data can help to characterize and determine the timing of a critical transition. This can enhance our abilities to detect and anticipate them. We explored the potentials of remotely sensed vegetation (NDVI), water (MNDWI), and vegetation-water (VWR) indices, obtained from time series of MODIS satellite images to characterize the stability of a wetland ecosystem, Dorge Sangi, near the lake Urmia, Iran, that experienced a regime shift recently. In addition, as a control case, we applied the same methods to another wetland ecosystem in Lake Arpi, Armenia which did not experience a regime shift. We propose a new composite index (MVWR) based on combining vegetation and water indices, which can improve the ability to anticipate a critical transition in a wetland ecosystem. Our results revealed that MVWR in combination with autocorrelation at-lag-1 could successfully provide early warning signals for a critical transition in a wetland ecosystem, and showed a significantly improved performance compared to either vegetation (NDVI) or water (MNDWI) indices alone.

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Section: Study Sitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Study Sitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Remotely-Sensed Early Warning Signals of a Critical Transition in a Wetland Ecosystem

et al. 2017

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“…These impacts can have severe environmental consequences. For example, both the drying up of the Aral Sea and the depletion of Lake Urmia in northern Iran are believed to be results of anthropogenic changes in river flow (Precoda, 1991;Aghakouchak et al, 2015). This implies that in order for GHMs to function properly, the effects of reservoirs have to be incorporated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deduction of reservoir operating rules for application in global hydrological models

Coerver

Rutten

Giesen

2018

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. A big challenge in constructing global hydrological models is the inclusion of anthropogenic impacts on the water cycle, such as caused by dams. Dam operators make decisions based on experience and often uncertain information. In this study information generally available to dam operators, like inflow into the reservoir and storage levels, was used to derive fuzzy rules describing the way a reservoir is operated. Using an artificial neural network capable of mimicking fuzzy logic, called the ANFIS adaptive-network-based fuzzy inference system, fuzzy rules linking inflow and storage with reservoir release were determined for 11 reservoirs in central Asia, the US and Vietnam. By varying the input variables of the neural network, different configurations of fuzzy rules were created and tested. It was found that the release from relatively large reservoirs was significantly dependent on information concerning recent storage levels, while release from smaller reservoirs was more dependent on reservoir inflows. Subsequently, the derived rules were used to simulate reservoir release with an average Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient of 0.81.

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“…Over the last 40 years, the water level and surface area of Urmia lake have declined (Rokni et al 2015) by 80% (AghaKouchak et al 2015). As a result, the salinity of the lake has sharply increased which is disturbing the ecosystems, local agriculture and livelihoods, regional health, as well as tourism.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Previous studies have indicated that the lake desiccation is probably caused by a combination of human activities and climate change (AghaKouchak et al 2015, Fathian et al 2014, Hamzekhani et al 2015, Hassanzadeh 2010, Jalili et al 2015. The area of the agricultural lands has more than tripled over the last 40 years supported by a considerable number of reservoirs and a large irrigation network (Iran Ministry of Energy 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preserving the world second largest hypersaline lake under future irrigation and climate change

Shadkam

Ludwig

Vliet

et al. 2016

Science of The Total Environment

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Abstract. Urmia Lake, the world second largest hypersaline lake, has been largely desiccated over the last two decades resulting in socio-environmental consequences similar or even larger than the Aral Sea disaster. To rescue the lake a new water management plan has been proposed, a rapid 40% decline in irrigation water use replacing a former plan which intended to develop reservoirs and irrigation. However, none of these water management plans, which have large socio-economic impacts, have been assessed under future changes in climate and water availability. By adapting a method of environmental flow requirements (EFRs) for hypersaline lakes, we estimated annually 3.7•10 9 m 3 water is needed to preserve Urmia Lake. Then, the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) hydrological model was forced with bias-corrected climate model outputs for both the lowest (RCP2.6) and highest (RCP8.5) greenhouse-gas concentration scenarios to estimate future water availability and impacts of water management strategies. Results showed a 10% decline in future water availability in the basin under RCP2.6 and 27% under RCP8.5. Our results showed that if future climate change is highly limited (RCP2.6) inflow can be just enough to meet the EFRs by implementing the reduction irrigation plan. However, under more rapid climate change scenario (RCP8.5) reducing irrigation water use will not be enough to save the lake and more drastic measures are needed. Our results showed that future water management plans are not robust under climate change in this region. Therefore, an integrated approach of future land-water use planning and climate change adaptation is therefore needed to improve future water security and to reduce the desiccating of this hypersaline lake.

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Aral Sea syndrome desiccates Lake Urmia: Call for action

Cited by 295 publications

References 32 publications

Remotely-Sensed Early Warning Signals of a Critical Transition in a Wetland Ecosystem

Remotely-Sensed Early Warning Signals of a Critical Transition in a Wetland Ecosystem

Deduction of reservoir operating rules for application in global hydrological models

Preserving the world second largest hypersaline lake under future irrigation and climate change

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