Lake Urmia desiccation drives building heating and cooling energy demand in northwestern Iran

Abstract The progressive desiccation of terminal lakes under global climate change represents an emerging environmental challenge with significant implications for regional climate and building energy demand. This study investigates the impact of Lake Urmia desiccation on building energy consumption across 13 cities in the Lake Urmia Basin in northwestern Iran during 2001–2023. Using MODIS land surface temperature, Landsat water-extent monitoring, MERRA-2 reanalysis, and GPM precipitation data, we generated 299 year-specific weather files for 13 cities across the Lake Urmia Basin. Year-by-year EnergyPlus simulations of representative residential and commercial building archetypes were conducted to quantify the progressive impacts of drought-induced climatic changes on heating and cooling demand. Results show that the 90% reduction in lake surface area coincided with a 1.8–2.4 °C rise in summer temperatures and a 0.8–1.2 °C increase in annual mean temperatures. A control-city analysis indicates that the majority of these temperature changes can be attributed to lake-desiccation-driven mesoscale forcing rather than generic urban or regional warming. Annual cooling energy increased by 18–35% for residential and 22–42% for commercial buildings, while heating demand declined by 8–15%, resulting in a net HVAC energy increase of 12–23%. Cities within 30 km of the former lakeshore experienced impacts 40–60% greater than those in more distant areas, confirming the spatial attenuation of lake-related climatic effects. Strong negative correlations between lake surface area and cooling energy (r = − 0.82 to − 0.91, p < 0.001) further demonstrate a robust association between lake desiccation and increasing cooling demand. The cumulative additional annual energy cost across the basin was estimated at $127–218 million, while peak cooling demand increased by 15–25%, potentially placing additional pressure on electricity-grid stability. These findings have important implications for regional energy-infrastructure planning, climate-adaptive building design, urban cooling strategies, and lake-restoration policies in semi-arid regions undergoing large-scale environmental degradation.