Lake Urmia - mitigation of water loss impact

Vladimír Šindler

Bakalářská práce

Abstract:

Lake Urmia, located in the Northwest of Iran, used to be one of the largest saline lakes in the world. But since 1995 the lake has been drying up mostly due to poor management of water resources, excessive use of water in agriculture and climate change. Water loss in the lake presents major threats for humans and wildlife within the lake´s basin in the form of increasing salinity of the lake and groundwater and exposed lakebed with thick layer of salts being eroded by wind and carried across the lake basin. In the similar case of Aral Sea, the saline dust from the lakebed was increasing salinity of the soils and causing respiratory, eye, heart and other kinds of illness to humans and animals around the area. This bachelor thesis presents major causes and consequences of the desiccation of Lake Urmia, together with a brief overview of proposed solutions and strategies to the situation, including a proposal of prevention against saline dust spreading beyond edges of the lake in the form of windbreakers consisting of salt resistant plants (halophytes). And brief overview of water desalination technologies that may be implemented in areas with high levels of groundwater salinity.

Keywords

Lake Urmia, environment, water treatment

Jazyk práce: angličtina

Datum vytvoření / odevzdání či podání práce: 12. 4. 2019

Obhajoba závěrečné práce

• Vedoucí: doc. Ing. Vladimír Krepl, CSc.

Česká zemědělská univerzita v Praze

Fakulta tropického zemědělství

Bakalářský studijní program / obor:
Tropické zemědělství / International Cooperation in Agriculture and Rural Development