The Study of Decrease Effects of Urmia Lake Level on the South and South East Wetlands

Lake Urmia basin is one of Iran’s basins. In the last few years, due to natural and human factors, the lake's water level has declined and its surface area has reduced. As a result, the coastline and the surrounding area have undergone considerable changes. In eastern Azarbayjan province as in other areas of Iran, there are several wetlands few of which are located in south and eastern south. The main objective of this paper was to study morphological changes of wetlands. So, the lake level changes were investigated using Landsat satellite images (including TM and ETM sensors) for the years 2000 and 2010, and the lake's water level fluctuations were determined. Next, geomorphologic effects of the area, especially wetlands and their changes, were investigated based on satellite imagery. The results showed that the studied lake area has shrunk for more than 10 square kilometers, which have subsequently been added to the playas. The wetland areas in the region have significantly shrank and two lagoons (GareGeshlag and Yadegarloo) have dried up. The results also showed that this reduction had a great effect on the morphology of the region, especially on the reduction of the wetlands.