The drying up of Lake Urmia in Iran, caused by a combination of climate change and decades of government mismanagement, has resulted in a severe environmental and humanitarian crisis, leading to human rights violations related to health, livelihood, forced migration, and the suppression of protests by the Iranian authorities.
The exposed lake bed has become a source of massive salt storms, carrying corrosive salt particles into nearby cities such as Tabriz and Urmia.
This air pollution has led to an increase in respiratory illnesses, allergies, eye irritation, and potential long-term risks of several kinds of cancer among the local population. Studies indicate a link between the crisis and a higher prevalence of conditions such as hypertension, anemia, heart diseases, depression and anxiety among Azerbaijani residents in adjacent areas.
The increased salinity in local water sources also threatens the quality of the drinking water.
Environmental disaster meets human rights crisis
The salinization of soil and the water shortages have severely damaged the agricultural sector, a primary source of livelihood for the local Azerbaijani population. This has led to significant income and job losses for farmers. The decline of the lake has led also to a collapse in the local tourism industry and other lake-dependent economic activities.
Thousands of farmers and people who lived from tourism have lost their jobs, and this has triggered a “silent evacuation” or mass migration from villages and towns around the lake, disrupting social stability and community life.
Experts point to the construction of numerous dams on rivers feeding the lake, the extensive digging of illegal wells for water-intensive agriculture, and a lack of political will to implement effective conservation plans as primary causes of the crisis. The Iranian government has spent billions on restoration projects with meager results, largely due to failure in enforcing necessary changes such as reducing agricultural water use.
The Iranian government has faced heavy criticism for its handling of the crisis, leading to widespread protests by local residents and environmental activists, particularly from the ethnic Azerbaijani community, which views the lake as a symbol of its identity. Security forces have responded to these demonstrations with force, arresting hundreds of activists and protesters.
This situation has intensified long-standing ethnic tensions. The Azerbaijani community in Iran claims the government’s inaction is a deliberate strategy, described by some as “ethnic cleansing by environmental degradation,” to displace them from their ancestral lands. The government denies these claims, blaming environmental factors.
Human rights activists argue that the government’s failure to address the environmental crisis and its consequences effectively violates the basic human rights of the local population to a healthy environment, life, and adequate standards of living.
The drying of Lake Urmia is widely seen as a symbol of failed governance, where short-term economic exploitation, political neglect, and ethnic oppression have created a multifaceted crisis with profound and ongoing human rights implications.
The crisis has exacerbated existing ethnic tensions between the local Azerbaijani population and the Iranian government. Protests have occurred, with the local communities accusing the government of negligence and political mismanagement of water resources while prioritizing other regions or industries.
The drying up of Lake Urmia is increasing tension between the ethnic groups in the country, especially between the Persians and Azerbaijanis, and it could bring the anger of the Azerbaijani population in Iran to a boil and accelerate the process of Iran’s disintegration into ethnic states, something I have been talking about for many years.
The writer is a Middle East scholar and commentator on the region.