Talent of the Year 2020 - NOMINEE: Mehrdad Vahed Yousefabad

In the last decade, Iran has been embroiled in a long-term drought, and the lack of management of water resources has posed a serious threat to Iran's environment. Urmia Lake is an endorheic salt lake is located in northwest of Iran. At its greatest extent, it was the largest lake in the Middle East and the sixth-largest saltwater lake on Earth. The lake in 2015 has shrunk to 10% of its former size due to human factors including, damming of the rivers that flow into it, and the pumping of groundwater from the surrounding area, construction of 15km highway on the lake. Research shows that long drought is only decreased 5% of lake water. Some environmental experts predict that if the lake becomes dry, the environment's climate will change. It will pose a risk for the ecosystem and the people lives in the lake area. But in late 2018 and early 2019 nature did its job and winter and spring rains fed the lake by flood waters and overflow water of dams, so that the lake level has amazingly increased and almost 53% of the lake is covered with water. This has made people happy around the lake, and visits to the lake have increased. Now our eyes are on the sky in the hoping for rain.

About author:
Mehrdad Vahed was born in Tabriz, Iran, 1991. He started photography in 2015 as a freelance photographer and he participated several group exhibitions and won several awards in Iran and around world. After graduating from MSc of Mechatronics at IAUT, he focused on social documentary photography, especially in issues of urban life and environment changes.