The rise and demise of Iran’s Urmia Lake during the Holocene and the Anthropocene: “what’s past is prologue”

• Published in: Regional environmental change 2023-12, Vol.23 (4), p.121, Article 121
• Main Authors: Sharifi, Arash, Djamali, Morteza, Peterson, Larry C., Swart, Peter K., Ávila, María Guadalupe Pulido, Esfahaninejad, Mojgan, de Beaulieu, Jacques-Louis, Lahijani, Hamid A. K., Pourmand, Ali
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Annual precipitation; Anthropocene; Anthropogenic factors; Carbon; Chemical weathering; Climate; Climate Change; Climate Change/Climate Change Impacts; Drought; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth science; Environment; Environmental Sciences; Evaporation; Feces; Geography; Holocene; Human impact; Human influences; Hydrology; Lakes; Nature Conservation; Oceanography; Original Article; Paleogeography; Pollen; Precipitation; Reconstruction; Regional/Spatial Science; Sediments; Water shortages
• ISSN: 1436-3798; 1436-378X
• DOI: 10.1007/s10113-023-02119-x

Urmia Lake in NW Iran was the world’s second largest hypersaline lake until three decades ago, when it began to lose ~ 90% of its surface area due to dwindling water input and enhanced evaporation. To help discern the role of natural vs anthropogenic factors in the rapid demise of Urmia Lake, we present a high-resolution, multi-proxy reconstruction of climate, and hydrological variability from the lake’s sediments. We identify several episodes of wet and dry conditions over the past 11,300 years, and an atmospheric teleconnection between the climate of the interior of West Asia and the North Atlantic region. Estimates of mean annual precipitation based on chemical weathering indices range between 174 and 401 mm year −1 during the Holocene. A combination of geochemical proxies, pollen reconstruction, and the absence of any evaporite horizons throughout the Holocene period point to the prevailing role of human impact on the current vanishing of Urmia Lake.