Human-Made Disaster at Lake Urmia (Iran)

人类引起的气候变化和自然资源开发威胁着全世界的社会和生态系统。乌尔米亚湖位于伊朗西北部，是世界第二大高盐湖，自1990年代中期以来一直在干涸，主要原因是其集水区用水量过大。湖泊干涸的后果包括土地和淡水资源退化、公共卫生和粮食安全问题、经济衰退和失业，从而为生活在该盆地周围的650万人造成日益困难的社会经济环境。所有这些问题使乌尔米耶湖成为研究灾难性环境变化、社会经济后果和当地适应战略之间相互作用的理想案例。该研究项目包含两个工作包（WP），WP 1调查潜在环境引起的移民的当前原因和影响，WP 2研究当地实践的水和资源管理的转变。这两个工作包都是以实地为基础的，在方法上通过定量住户调查和半结构化和叙述式访谈来实现目标。第一工作方案的目标是提供详细情况，并帮助建立假设，说明环境退化如何以及在多大程度上导致受灾害影响的个人、家庭和社区移徙和采取其他适应战略。环境、经济、社会和政治因素是相互关联的，需要一并加以审查，以便了解环境因素在人口流动中所起的作用。此外，第一工作方案力求提供具体证据，说明移徙本身如何能够作为一种适应战略，以及移徙如何能够反过来支持原籍地的其他形式的适应，例如通过跨地方网络和汇款。WP2的目标是从流域地区当地农民的角度确定和分析水管理和水社会循环的社会、经济、政治、体制和文化方面。它侧重于如何在乌尔米耶湖地区执行水管理，以及如何在巨大的环境压力下改变最近。WP2试图找出国家法规、综合水管理解决方案和地方利益之间的摩擦点。将通过结合社会文化、社会政治和社会经济传统及框架条件，对当地沿着实践的水管理进行经验分析，从而作出这一贡献。

Human-induced climate change and natural resource exploitation threaten societies and ecosystems worldwide. Lake Urmia, located in north-western Iran and forming the world’s second largest hypersaline lake, has been drying up since the mid-1990s, mainly as a result of excessive water consumption in its catchment area. Consequences of the lake’s desiccation include the degradation of land and freshwater resources, public health and food security concerns, economic decline and unemployment, thus creating an increasingly difficult socio-economic context for 6.5 million people living in the basin’s surroundings. All of these issues make Lake Urmia an ideal case study for research on the interplay between disastrous environmental change, socio-economic consequences and local adaptation strategies. The research project contains two working packages (WPs), with WP1 investigating the current reasons for and effects of potentially environmentally-induced migration, and WP2 studying transformations of locally practiced water and resource management. Both working packages are field-based, with the objectives being approached methodologically by a mix of quantitative household surveys and semi-structured and narrative interviews. The goal of WP1 is to provide details and help build hypotheses on how and how far environmental degradation induces migration and other adaptation strategies of individuals, households and communities affected by the disaster. Environmental, economic, social and political factors are interrelated and need to be examined jointly, in order to understand the roles environmental factors play in population movements. Moreover, WP1 seeks to provide concrete evidence on how migration itself can serve as an adaptation strategy and how it can in turn support other forms of adaptation in the area of origin, for instance through translocal networks and remittances. The goal of WP2 is to identify and analyse social, economic, political, institutional and cultural dimensions of water management and the hydro-social cycle from the perspective of local farmers in the basin region. It focuses on how water management is executed in the Lake Urmia region and how it has changed recently in light of massive environmental stress. WP2 tries to identify points of friction between state regulations, integrated water management solutions and local interests. This contribution will be achieved by analysing empirically locally practiced water management along with socio-cultural, socio-political and socio-economic traditions and framework conditions.