Azerbaijan, Baku, Sept. 30 / Trend, N. Umid, S. Isayev
Iranian Parliament has established a fraction on reviving eastern Iran's Lake Hamoun, Iranian MP Bagher Husseini said, Mehr news agency reported.
He went on to note that, the Lake Hamoun has important ecological position in the region, adding that reviving the Lake will positively affect the development of the Iran's Sistan and Baluchestan Province.
Lake Hamoun which is completely dried up, is Iran's third great lake after Caspian Sea (shared) and Lake Urmia.
Lake Hamoun once covered over 5660 square kilometers and supported thousands of hectares of pasture, cane plantations and forest. Deer, fox, otters, wild cats and several species of migratory birds flourished in the surrounding wetlands, but have now all but disappeared.
Some 3800 km2 of the lake area is within Iranian territory and the rest is located in Afghanistan.
Iran claims that Afghanistan has closed input of the Helmand River which is the main water source of the Lake. According to the report, Afghanistan has held water-supply obligation to the lake.
Due to heavy drought, which has intensified in the area in the last 15 years, and the fact that Afghanistan, according to Iran, was not fulfilling its obligations on supplying the Lake Hamoun with water, the latter has completely dried up.
Aside from Lake Hamoun, Iranian MP`s also will establish a fraction on saving Lake Urmia in north-west Iran, which is experiencing its worst drought in many years,.
Over 70 percent of Urmia's water has dried up, as the water level of the lake has been declining steadily since 1995.
The officials have said if the current restoration efforts are not effective, the lake will be turned into a swamp within four years. Previous reports said Lake Urmia needs 3.1 billion cubic meters of water per year to survive.
Lake Urmia is the third largest salt water lake on earth with a surface area of approximately 5,200 square kilometers.
On August 19, the official website of the Iranian president reported that President Rouhani establish a working group to tackle the issue of saving the Urmia Lake.
The work group was commissioned to use the background of the already conducted studies and technical research work in the field and to present their proposals for saving the Urmia Lake to the government within a two-month period.
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