Recently, new insights into the restoration of Lake Urmia by different stakeholders such as Urmia
Lake Restoration Programme, CIWP, DoE, MoJA, MoE stabilized the lake situation to some
extent. The latest information from LU monitoring stations in late 2018 show the water level of
the Lake as 1270.24 meters with an area of 1681.33 km2 which shows an improvement to the
situation of the lake in 2014. While still a lot of effort should be done for restoring the lake to its
optimum ecological situation with water level of 1274.1 meters. The Integrated Management Plan
of LU basin developed under Conservation of Iranian Wetlands Project (CIWP) adopted by the
cabinet in 2008, contains a set of priority activities under each thematic objective. Furthermore,
the cabinet also adopted a list of urgent actions based on the MP with clear responsibilities assigned
to each authority for the restoration of the lake. The “wise use of land and water resources including
agriculture water saving”, “urgent biodiversity conservation” and “awareness raising” are among
the priority areas.

