Long-term Changes in the Saline Lake Qarun (Egypt)

Abstract

There is now ample evidence of the impacts of the recent climate change and anthropogenic activities on different saline lake ecosystems. All over the world salt lakes are threatened by climate change, water diversions upstream for agricultural purposes, watershed changes, introduction of aliens, etc. that result in catastrophic changes of the lakes. Among the examples of this there are the largest saline lakes including Great Salt Lake, Owens Lake, Mono Lake (N. America), Laguna Mar Chicuita (S. America), the Dead and Aral Seas, Ebinur Lake, Urmia Lake (Asia), St. Lucia Estuary (Africa), etc. A lot of negative consequences for human communities are resulted from that. In our World of Change some changes are a natural result of the global climate system variability, but the responsibility for other changes falls squarely on humanity’s shoulders. We need to know how to divide these two groups of the causes of the salt lake changes to predict and mitigate the negative results. Lake Qarun (Moeris) is a terminal saline lake in the northern part of El-Fayum Depression (Middle Egypt, ~80 km southwest of Cairo, at the margin of the Nile Valley). It lays on 29°30