Financial Tribune - The lake now has enough water to attract birds and aquatic species such as flamingos and Artemia, but it still has a long way to go to completely survive

Despite the rise in evaporation in Urmia Lake catchment area, the water level is stable and things are normal for now, head of Urmia Lake Restoration Project said Saturday.

“Close to 1.6 billion cubic meters of water is forecast to evaporate from Urmia Lake in the next three months and the current water level at 1,272 centimeters could fall by 40 centimeters,” Farhad Sarkhosh was quoted as saying by IRNA.

Putting daily evaporation at about 18 million cubic meters, he said the evaporation notwithstanding, the lake now holds 4.7 bcm of water or about 23% more than last year’s 3.8 bcm. The figure was 2.5 bcm in 2018.

To help restore the world famous but troubled lake, close to 270 million cubic meters of water was discharged into the lake from four dams in West Azarbaijan Province in March and May.