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Hydrodynamic and Chemical Modeling of Lake Urmia with FVCOM: Including Salt Precipitation and Dissolution in the Lakebed

Habibi Komeni, Amir Hossein | 2025

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  1. Type of Document: M.Sc. Thesis
  2. Language: Farsi
  3. Document No: 58821 (09)
  4. University: Sharif University of Technology
  5. Department: Civil Engineering
  6. Advisor(s): Safaie, Ammar
  7. Abstract:
  8. In recent years, unfavorable climatic changes and intensified human activities have led to significant alterations in aquatic ecosystems. One of the most critical examples is the drastic decline in the water level of Lake Urmia, located in northwestern Iran, which faces the imminent risk of complete desiccation. In this context, hydrodynamic modeling and analysis of aquatic systems can play a crucial role in strategic decision-making for the sustainable management of water resources. Due to its hypersaline nature, Lake Urmia is strongly influenced by salt precipitation and dissolution processes, which directly affect both bathymetry and salinity concentrations. Accurately representing these processes has remained one of the main challenges in lake modeling. This study advances the understanding of Lake Urmia by integrating field measurements, laboratory analyses, and numerical modeling. Ten field-campaign series conducted during 2024–2025 yielded 100 water and sediment samples collected across the northern, middle, and southern basins of the lake and from adjacent rivers. Laboratory analyses indicated that halite comprised more than 98% of salt deposits in sediments and over 90% of the salinity of the brine. Consequently, halite was considered the dominant mineral in the lake and incorporated into the model. Salt precipitation and dissolution chemistry were first implemented as zero-dimensional relations in MATLAB and subsequently coupled to the three-dimensional, open-source hydrodynamic model FVCOM. The coupled hydro–geochemical model was applied for the years 2016 and 2024 and validated against observed water level, temperature, and salinity data. Results demonstrate that the developed model successfully reproduced salinity dynamics, with performance indices for salinity of R² = 0.81 and RMSE = 19.86 g/L for 2016, and R² = 0.86 and RMSE = 16.6 g/L for 2024. Furthermore, this study introduces a cost-effective and reliable method for salinity assessment in hypersaline environments
  9. Keywords:
  10. Three Dimensional Modeling ; Bathymetry ; Finite Volume Ocean Comuntty Model (FVCOM) ; Precipitation ; Dissolution ; Field Data ; Data Acquisition ; Brine Leaching ; Urumieh Lake

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