Desdemona Despair By Ali Mirchi, Kaveh Madani, and Amir AghaKouchak for Tehran Bureau23 January 2015 (The Guardian) – In the late 1990s, Lake Urmia, in north-western Iran, was twice as large as Luxembourg and the largest salt-water lake in the Middle East. Since then it has shrunk substantially, and was sliced in half in 2008, with consequences uncertain to this day, by a 15-km causeway designed to shorten the travel time between the cities of Urmia and Tabriz. Historically, the lake attracted migratory birds including flamingos, pelicans, ducks, and egrets. Its drying up, or desiccation, is undermining the local food web, especially by destroying one of the world’s largest natural habitats of the brine shrimp Artemia, a hardy species that can tolerate salinity levels of 340 grams per litre, more than eight times saltier than ocean water.
Read more about Lake Urmia: How Iran’s most famous lake is disappearing
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