ABSTRACT:

Urmia Lake, the second largest hyper-saline lake in the world, has experienced a significant drop in water level during the last decade. This study was designed to examine the water quality of Urmia Lake and to characterize the spatial heterogeneity and temporal changes of the physico-chemical parameters between October 2009 and July 2010. Two spatial interpolation methods, Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) and Ordinary Kriging (OK), were used and compared with each other to derive the spatial distribution of ionic constituents as well as TDS and density along the lake. Results showed that the main dominant cations and anions in Urmia Lake were Na+, Mg++, K+, Ca++, Cl- , SO4--, and HCO3-, respectively. Although water quality of the lake is homogeneous with depth, it differs between the northern and southern parts. Water quality also varies seasonally, determined by river inflows and the lake bathymetry. Moreover, with the present salinity level, salt precipitation is likely in Urmia Lake and is becoming one of the principal factors determining the distribution of solutes within the lake. This study shows that the combined use of temporal and spatial water quality data improves our understanding of complex, large aquatic systems like Urmia Lake.

ABSTRACT:

Belovsky, G. E., Stephens, D., Perschon, C., Birdsey, P., Paul, D., Naftz, D., … Allen, D. V. (2011). The Great Salt Lake Ecosystem (Utah, USA): Long term data and a structural equation approach. Ecosphere. https://doi.org/10.1890/ES10-00091.1

ABSTRACT:

Density of Artemia Urmiana in Lake Urmia from various studies.

ABSTRACT:

This file contains data representing the level_area_volume relationships of Lake Urmia. Satellite data and field measurements of the lake were used to develop these relationships. For more detail about the method see Karimi et al.,2016.

ABSTRACT:

We used the lake bathymetry map and temporal variation in the lake’s elevation to assess the distance between the two main resorts (Bari and Golmankhaneh) located on the old shoreline and the nearest part of Lake Urmia with water depth of at least 1 m. 1 m is the minimum depth needed for tourist boats (personal communication from local boatmen). Others report a slightly lower minimum depth of 0.8 m for kayaks and rafts in rivers (USACH, 2016). However, because of sediment crusts on the lake bed, higher depth would be required for boating.

ABSTRACT:

This file contains data showing the exposed dust area versus water level for Lake Urmia, Iran for the two periods. Dataset has been derived performing GIS analysis on the Lake bathymetry and the recognized potential dust areas.

ABSTRACT:

Flamingos (Phoenicopterus roseus) are one of the most prominent bird species of Lake Urmia, which use the islands of the lake for breeding and feed extensively on Artemia (Asem et al., 2014). Since flamingos comprise both a winter migratory population and a local breeding population (Asem et al., 2014), they are dependent on the abundance of Artemia and thus the level and salinity of the lake. In the UNDP-GEF project for Conservation of Iranian Wetlands, flamingos were selected as an indicator bird species of the lake biodiversity(DOE and UNDP, 2009). Flamingos may choose other food items in brackish/freshwater wetlands when Artemia populations are insufficient (Johnson and Cezily, 1975). This data contains the flamingo counts in both Lake Urmia and the Gharahgheshlagh wetland, the largest brackish wetland at the south part of the lake. Bird count usually is carried out annually in late January. We linked the sum counts of flamingos in Lake Urmia and the Gharahgheshlagh wetland with the lake water level.

ABSTRACT:

This data contains the threshold water levels for the conservation of Lake Urmia's southern islands extracted using three methods.
Islands of Urmia Lake are nesting sites for various bird species (Eimanifar and Mohebbi, 2007). Four of these islands located at the south part of the lake have the highest priority for conservation within the ecological boundary of the lake. To determine the threshold water levels at which the islands start to be connected to each other and to the shorelines, we obtained the polygons of the islands' boundary as well as the bathymetry map of the lake (Karimi et al., 2016). We used three methods in parallel. First, we used the bathymetry map to determine the threshold water levels when islands connect to each other and to the lake shore. Also when the north and the south arms of the lake disconnect from each other. Second, we visually inspected daily MODIS satellite images which allow water bodies to be distinguished from land (false color composite of 7-2-1 bands; https://lance-modis.eosdis.nasa.gov). After finding the dates at which islands either merge together or connect to the mainland, corresponding water levels were extracted from the time series of the lake water level and checked with those from the bathymetric map. Finally, we used classified Landsat satellite images of Urmia Lake developed by Alizade Govarchin Ghale, (2014); Alizade Govarchin Ghale et al., (2017); Kabiri et al., (2012) and checked the areal extent of the delineated lake water body to estimate the corresponding lake water levels at which islands merge together, connect to shores, and the lake’s north and south arms disconnect. Then, we assessed the uncertainty of each method.

ABSTRACT:

This data contains time series of TDS and ions concentrations in Lake Urmia from 1977 to 2017. We used data of East Azarbaijan Water Bureau (EAWB) which has been collected from four locations near the causeway bridge since 2005 at monthly intervals. As these data were all associated with the saturated brine condition, we also used published data prior to 2005 to obtain a complete picture of changes in lake salinity related to changes in lake elevation. To be consistent, we only used the data gathered from the surface strata (0-0.5 m).

ABSTRACT:

This resource contains dataset, figures, and Python codes used in the paper titled “Managing Lake Urmia, Iran for diverse restoration objectives: moving beyond a uniform target lake level ”, accepted for publication in Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies.

Data and scripts are for lake salinity, Artemia and flamingo populations, lake levels where islands connect to each other and the mainland, lakebed dust area, valuable ion concentrations, and recreational access measured as the distance from resort beaches to water deep enough to boat. Data derive from 40 years of experimental, field, satellite, and model data for the lake. We relate each metric to lake level.
Jian Wang from Utah State University ran all scripts and reproduced figures.

The resource is organized as:
- Data - Lake Urmia data used in the study from 1995 to 2015
- Figures - Figures that appear in the manuscript.
- Graphical Abstract - Graphical abstract of the manuscript
- Python codes - Codes used to query data and generate figures