|Location||Iran, Islamic Republic of, Esfahan|
|Central coordinates||52o 47.00' East 32o 20.00' North|
|IBA criteria||A4i, A4iii, B1i|
|Year of IBA assessment||2001|
Ornithological information See boxes for key species. An important wintering area for a variety of waterfowl, notably Phoenicopterus ruber (1,720 recorded), Anser anser, Tadorna ferruginea, T. tadorna, surface-feeding ducks and some shorebirds. Mid-winter waterfowl counts in the 1970s seldom exceeded 10,000 birds in total, but numbers have been much higher in recent years.
Site description Gavekhoni lake is a large (c.13,000 ha), shallow, saline lake in an enclosed drainage basin at 1,470 m on the western edge of the deserts of Iran's Central Plateau, c.40-100 km east-south-east of the city of Isfahan. The lake is fed almost entirely by the Zaindeh Rud, a large river rising in the Zagros. Flooding occurs in winter and spring, but the extent varies widely and the lake is often almost completely dry by the end of summer. There are Phragmites marshes with some Tamarix scrub at the mouth of the river, but the lake is otherwise largely devoid of vegetation except algae; plant growth elsewhere around the lake is very sparse and halophytic. The marshes of the lower Zaindeh Rud, fed by flooding from the river itself and by several irrigation canals, comprise a c.60 km chain of freshwater marshes and flood-plain wetlands ending at Gavekhoni lake, covering c.30,000 ha or more. Very little natural marsh vegetation remains (now mainly Phragmites and Typha), the main flooding now occurring over degraded steppe and land under wheat and rice. The lake is relatively inaccessible and undisturbed, although there is some grazing, hunting and cutting of wood for fuel in the marshes at the river mouth. Land ownership is public.
|Species||Season||Period||Population estimate||Quality of estimate||IBA Criteria||IUCN Category|
|Greylag Goose Anser anser||winter||1987-1992||1,740 individuals||good||B1i||Least Concern|
|Ruddy Shelduck Tadorna ferruginea||winter||1977-1992||530-3,280 individuals||good||A4i, B1i||Least Concern|
|Common Shelduck Tadorna tadorna||winter||1977-1992||1,090-11,300 individuals||good||A4i, B1i||Least Concern|
|Gadwall Anas strepera||winter||1987-1992||6,600 individuals||good||A4i, B1i||Least Concern|
|Eurasian Wigeon Anas penelope||winter||1987-1992||4,560 individuals||good||A4i, B1i||Least Concern|
|Mallard Anas platyrhynchos||winter||1977-1992||5,100-7,960 individuals||good||B1i||Least Concern|
|Northern Shoveler Anas clypeata||winter||1987-1992||8,370 individuals||good||A4i, B1i||Least Concern|
|Northern Pintail Anas acuta||winter||1977-1992||110-13,250 individuals||good||A4i, B1i||Least Concern|
|Common Teal Anas crecca||winter||1977-1992||7,600-41,500 individuals||good||A4i, B1i||Least Concern|
|Black-winged Stilt Himantopus himantopus||winter||1987-1992||286 individuals||good||B1i||Least Concern|
|Pied Avocet Recurvirostra avosetta||winter||1987-1992||146 individuals||good||B1i||Least Concern|
|Common Redshank Tringa totanus||winter||1977-1992||35-1,214 individuals||good||B1i||Least Concern|
|A4iii Species group - waterbirds||winter||1977-1992||-||unknown||A4iii|
|Protected area||Designation||Area (ha)||Relationship with IBA||Overlap with IBA (ha)|
|Gavkhouni Lake and marshes of the lower Zaindeh Rud||Wetlands of International Importance (Ramsar)||43,000||protected area contained by site||43,000|
|IUCN habitat||Habitat detail||Extent (% of site)|
|Artificial landscapes (terrestrial)||major|
|Artificial landscapes (aquatic)||major|
|Land-use||Extent (% of site)|
|nature conservation and research||68%|
|Notes: cutting of fuelwood|
Other biodiversity None known to BirdLife International.
Management considerations There is no legal protection, though the whole area was designated a Ramsar Site in 1975. The principal threat is water-borne pollution from the city of Isfahan and other urban centres upstream along the Zaindeh Rud.
References Carp (1980), Ramsar Convention Bureau (1993), Scott (1976a,c, 1980).
Contribute Please click here to help BirdLife conserve the world's birds - your data for this IBA and others are vital for helping protect the environment.
Recommended citation BirdLife International (2013) Important Bird Areas factsheet: Gavekhoni lake, and marshes of the lower Zaindeh Rud. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 22/05/2013
To provide new information to update this factsheet or to correct any errors, please email BirdLife