# Lake Urmia Salt lake's sedimentation and water dynamics impacts on past environmental reconstruction

E. Gibert, Alina Tudryn, Ting Kong, Piotr Tucholka, Seyed-Hani Motavalli-Anbaran, Christelle Marlin, Mohammad Lankarani, Hesam Ahmady-Birgani

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► To cite this version:

E. Gibert, Alina Tudryn, Ting Kong, Piotr Tucholka, Seyed-Hani Motavalli-Anbaran, et al., Lake Urmia Salt lake's sedimentation and water dynamics impacts on past environmental reconstruction. 7ème édition du colloque "Climat et Impacts" 2022, Nov 2022, Gif-sur-Yvette, France. hal-03874535

HAL Id: hal-03874535

https://cnrs.hal.science/hal-03874535

Submitted on 28 Nov 2022

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Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
université
PARIS-SACLAY

FACULTÉ
DES SCIENCES
D'ORSAY

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7ème édition

Colloque

CLIMAT ET IMPACTS

23, 24 & 25 novembre 2022

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## Volume des résumés

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# Lake Urmia Salt lake's sedimentation and water dynamics impacts on past environmental reconstruction

Elisabeth GIBERT-BRUNET <fnref n="1" />,*, Alina TUDRYN <fnref n="1" />, Ting KONG <fnref n="1" />, Piotr TUCHOLKA <fnref n="1" />,<fnref n="2" />, Seyed-Hani MOTAVALLI-ANBARAN <fnref n="3" />, Christelle MARLIN <fnref n="1" />, Mohammad LANKARANI <fnref n="4" />, Hesam AHMADY-BIRGANI <fnref n="5" />

In recent decades, an overall decrease in surface water resources, even saline, especially in semi-arid and arid regions of the world, can be both a precursor to a decrease in groundwater recharge. This decrease comes either from the impact of climate change moving towards a different distribution of precipitation and evapotranspiration indices, and/or from the increasing footprint of anthropogenic activities both through inappropriate water use, extensive pumping, or even population increases in areas already under pressure for freshwater resources (e.g., Wurtsbaugh et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2018).

This is particularly pregnant in salt lake basins for which water resources are vital to hydro-ecosystems and the population. But these basins are not easy to study other than by modeling, due to their very complicated structures as well as the processes they undergo (saltwater intrusion, pollution, etc.), and considering the lacustrine sedimentary deposits (degradation) to which they may or may not be connected.

Here we present ongoing research on the Urmia Lake Basin (northern Iran) which is facing a drastic decrease of more than 8 m in its water level over the last 20 years, leading to soil salinization, increase in dust storms, decline in ecosystem services with the effect of losses in agricultural production and massive emigration of rural communities.

In order to understand the hydrogeological behavior of the lake under anthropogenic pressures (excessive pumping) and climate change, sedimentary sequences were recovered from the recently drained western part of Urmia Salt Lake, as well as surface and groundwater samples and geological samples from the entire Shahr Chay River Basin.

Using isotope geochemistry (δ¹⁸O, δ²H, δ¹³C et A¹⁴C), we propose a conceptual model of the lake functioning.

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## CAPTIONS

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- Interbedded brines

- Sedimentary levels

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- Rising-up of H₂S-smelling muds

- Corings

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- Well (for domestic use)

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- Buffer zone

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- Schematic present-day GW flux

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- Present-day piezometric level

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- Schematic evolution of the saline

wedge (with a slope more or less

vertical in relation with the lake level)

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- CH₄ and H₂S production

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- Present-day lake level

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- Past lake levels (high-low alternatively

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- Exchange between groundwater and lake bottom

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- Exchange in the buffer zones (?)

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<footnote n="1">¹ University Paris-Saclay, UMR CNRS 8148-GEOPS, Bâtiment 504, 91405, Orsay, France (elisabeth.gibert@universite-paris-saclay.fr)</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² Université de Varsovie, Département de Géographie, Zwirki i Wigury 93, 02-089 Warszawa, Poland</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³ Institute of Geophysics, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴ Faculty of Natural Resources, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵ School of Geology, University-College of Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran</footnote>