Managing Lake Urmia, Iran for diverse restoration objectives: Moving beyond a uniform target lake level

Lake Urmia, Iran. There is widespread interest in restoring drying saline lakes. At Iran’s hypersaline managers have sought a uniform target lake level of 1274.1 m above sea to lower salinity below 263 g L?1 and recover Artemia sufficient densities support flamingos. We suggest that addressing broader range objectives will allow more flexibility for managing the lake. define eight restoration salinity, sustain flamingo populations, separate islands from each other mainland, reduce lakebed dust, maintain commercially valuable ions, improve recreational access resort beaches. use 40 years experimental, field, satellite, model data relate objective level. describe variations through time associated uncertainties meeting objective. show that:1) prevent setting precise level; 2) The current may not sufficiently flamingos; 3) Restoration do converge single tradeoffs are murky; 4) Urmia should focus on multiple ecosystem services track how they met as varies over time; 5) As information about improves, adapt their management strategies meet most attainable objectives.