Caption:
View of abandoned guesthouses, hotels and boats in a coastal village of Sharafkhaneh located in the northeast of Urmia lake. The village used to be one of the heavily travelled touristic places around the lake. The lake became dry, the surrounding lands' value was reduced and created significant financial problems for families. Iran's Lake Urmia was once the second-largest saltwater lake in the world, covering more than 2,000 square miles at its deepest in the 1990s. In the past two decades, the lake has dried out, shrinking at times to less than 20% of its average size. It's not a story of climate change, though that certainly contributed.