ABSTRACT: One of the most important mining activity areas of the ancient Anatolian civilizations is Lake VanBasin. Urartians, capitalized around City of Van, has tremendous metal produced and famous Urartianceramics for centuries. Moreover, their mastery in metal production gives the name of the Bronze Age, oneof the antic epoch of Anatolian civilizations. Considering this historical background, it is clear that metaland industrial raw material production took place in the basin for couple of thousands of years, which theycan also be accepted as environmental contaminants for Lake Van. The final drainage of the rivers of LakeVan Basin is the Lake Van itself. Thus, all pollutants derived from economic activities in the basin weredrained to the lake and the geochemical composition of the lake has changed according to the amount ofthe anion-cation-heavy metal composition of drained waste waters. This study focuses on geologicalenvironment and contaminations derived from urban areas and agricultural activities are out of interest.This study aims to demonstrate the environmental impact of the mining activities, quarries, non-minedmineralization areas, natural radioactive contaminations and geothermal discharges in the basin. Thespecial geochemical composition of the Lake Van started to change after urbanization around the lake andun-controlled industrial activities; the long-term geochemical effects of the geological composition of thebasin will be discussing in this paper with the exception of the environmental impact of the humanitariancontaminants.After this study, the mineral location map of the basin was updated and the environmental impacts ofmining works and natural geological contaminants on the Lake Van have been evaluated. Remote sensingtechniques were used to locate the mineralization and alteration zones and dip maps were prepared toevaluate the erosion effect onto these sites. The relation between radioactive anomalies described inprevious studies and geology have been examined. As a consequence, the mining works such as gravelsand production, pumice and other quarries and mines are precipitating the erosion of the basin.Afterwards, both chemical contamination and sedimentation rate were increased. As a result, NaturalHabitat of Lake Van is getting polluted day after day because of these uncontrolled mining works andgeological - geomorphological behavior of the Lake Van Basin. As a solution, comprehensive geochemicalstudies shoul be undertaken immediately in tha Basin including all pollutants derived both fromcivilization works and the nature fo the geological environment. These studies should be used to constructthe sustainable environmental management system of the Lake Van Basin.