Iran’s Lake Urmia was once the second-largest saltwater lake in the world, covering more than 2,000 square miles at its deepest in the 1990s. In the past two decades, the lake has dried out, shrinking at times to less than 20% of its average size.

It’s not a story of climate change, though that certainly contributed. It’s a case of water mismanagement. Scientists call it a “contemporary environmental catastrophe” to rethink how the resource is managed in water-scarce countries. Researchers blame water overuse and inefficiency in agriculture, new dams and irrigation projects, a bridge cutting across the lake, declining rainfall and rising temperatures for much of the drying out.

“For me this is a really important topic: the environmental problems in the world,” says photographer Maximilian Mann, who traveled to Iran three times to document the bare land once obscured under saltwater. His photos are collected from all three trips.

In his experience, Mann says, it was easier to find men who were willing to be photographed because many of the women in rural areas near Lake Urmia “are more conservative than in cities and don’t like being photographed by men.” So it’s important to gain their belief when he wants to take pictures of them.

Lake researchers and advocates say there have been encouraging signs in the past few years. This past spring, massive flooding in Iran helped the lake regain water level as well. Mann’s photos were taken before that flooding.

“The floods certainly helped and increased the water levels,” says Amir Agha Kouchak, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, who has studied the lake. “However, one or a series of floods won’t have a long-term impact. The main issue in the basin is that the water demand is much higher than the renewable water in the basin. If the water demand in the basin is not managed, after a while the lake will continue to dry out. And the situation remains really worrying.”

Masses of ocean plastic are providing artificial habitat (栖息地) for otherwise coastal species, according to a new study published in Nature Communications. The study’s authors observed floating water bottles, old toothbrushes and waste fishing nets. The possibility exists that species may be evolving to better adapt to life on plastic.

A decade ago, marine researchers believed coastal species could not survive a trip across the inhospitable open ocean. Yet Japan’s 2011 tsunami (海啸), which sent some 300 species of Asian marine life riding floating plastic garbage onto North American shores, disproved that assumption.

Ocean plastic is “creating opportunities for coastal species’ biogeography to greatly expand beyond what we previously thought was possible”, Linsey Haram, a researcher and co-author of the study, said in a report.

The concept of species-covered plastic may sound like the story of ocean species’ victory in spite of human pollution. But that’s not quite the case, explains Juan José Alava, PhD, an expert at the University of British Columbia. In addition to transporting non-native species to new habitats where they may become invasive and destructive, the plastic is “basically an ecological trap”, says Alava. “That’s because small species on the floating structure may attract bigger animals to come for food. When these creatures enter garbage areas for food, they run a high risk of eating and/or becoming caught in plastic and dying.”

While scientists have found some types of bacteria (细菌) are able to break down plastic, thereby cleaning up garbage, it’s unlikely that the marine animals will have any such effect. “The 2021 UN report was clear that the increasing plastic pollution is putting the health of all the world’s oceans and seas at risk,” says Alava.

How do you deal with plastic bags from the supermarket? Throw them away or reuse them? How about eating them?

Indian company EnviGreen has made a bag with natural ingredients (成分). It looks and feels just like plastic, but can be broken down easily. The bags bring no harm to the environment. Both humans and animals can safely eat them.

EnviGreen founder Ashwath Hedge spent four years doing experiments with a combination of 12 natural ingredients. They include potato, corn, vegetable oil and banana. He made the ingredients into liquid and used the liquid to make the bag. Although the EnviGreen bag is about 35 percent more expensive than a common plastic bag, it has many advantages. According to the Wall Street Journal, it takes 1,000 years for common plastic bags to break down. But an EnviGreen bag can naturally break down in less than 180 days. It also breaks down in less than a day in water, and in about 15 seconds in boiling water. Hedge was happy to show it in his interview with The Better India. In the interview, he put an EnviGreen bag in water and ate it with a smile.

According to India’s Minister of State for Atmosphere, Forest and Weather Change, the country produces more than 15,000 tons of plastic waste every day. But only 9,000 tons are processed. In China, 3 billion plastic bags are used every day. Maybe the EnviGreen bag could be a solution to the world problem of plastic pollution.