Recognition and Ranking the Causes of the Outbreak Crises in Uromieh Lake Using Delphi Technique

Drought is one of the natural phenomenons which have the most damages to the arid and semi-arid areas. Today the catchment of Uromieh Lake with large scale of population density is one of the most important environmental challenges, so that, because of low precipitation and decrease of water flows in recent years, the life of this lake has been in serious hazard. This catchment with 52000 square kilometers, and average of 200 to 900 millimeters of rainfall, has the water volumes of 22 billion cubic meters of water in all its catchment. There has been constructed several dams with reserving volume of 3 billion cubic meters on the rivers coming to the lake, in order to providing the needs of agriculture and human fresh water. Regarding the diminish of catchment area of the lake and the amount of water flow, prefect restoration of the lake is very rare.
In this research, we have tried to explain the impact of the factors of the crises with recognizing the causes of outbreak of crises by using Delphi technique, in order to accession of managing priorities.
In this research, four main criteria and 21 sub-criteria have been identified the causes of crisis in the lake of Uromieh.
Discussion and According to the findings of this research, there are four main criteria and 21 sub-criteria. Construction of dams with 23 percent and changes in cropping patterns with 8 percent of impact, are the most important and effective causes of crises in the lake of Uromieh.