The Urmia Lake Bridge is a bridge in northern Iran. It crosses Lake Urmia and connects the provinces of East Azerbaijan and West Azerbaijan. The highway was completed in November 2008. The bridge is the largest and longest bridge project in Iran.
The bridge reduced the driving distance between Tabriz and Urmia by 135 kilometres (84 mi). This bridge has an important role in the development of the cultural exchanges and tourism and trade between the two provinces of East Azerbaijan and West Azerbaijan and saves time and fuel consumption and reduces road accidents.
History
A project to build a highway across the lake was initiated in the 1970s but was abandoned after the Iranian Revolution of 1979, though a 15 km (9.3 mi) causeway with an unbridged gap had already been completed. The project was revived in the early 2000s, and was completed in November 2008 with the opening of a 1.5 km (0.93 mi) bridge across the remaining gap. However, the high saline environment is already heavily rusting the steel on the bridge despite anti-corrosion treatment. Environmentalists have warned that the construction of the causeway for the bridge, together with a series of ecological factors, will contribute to the drying up of Urmia Lake, turning it into an inland salt marsh which will directly affect the climate of the region. They state that the 1,276 metres (4,186 ft) gap in the causeway is insufficiently wide enough to permit adequate flow between the two portions of the lake. The presence of increased numbers of Halobacteriaceae in the northern portion of the lake are indicative of increasing salinity.