Lake Urmia in Iran drying up due to droughts and unsustainable water consumption
Published on by Markus Pahlow, University of Canterbury - Senior Lecturer
Lake Urmia in Iran (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Urmia) is the largest lake in the Middle East, and the third largest saltwater lake on earth - but it is shrinking at rapid pace.
Why it's drying up: A recent study by Hassanzadeh et al, (http://na.unep.net/geas/getUNEPPageWithArticleIDScript.php?article_id=79) demonstrated that "65 per cent of the decline was from changes in inflow caused by climate change and diversion of surface water for upstream use, with the remaining balance due to construction of dams (25%) and decreased precipitation over the lake itself (10%)."
More information e.g. here: