Natural Science Forum / Earth Science / Oceanography / April 2006

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April 15th, 2006             PLANETARY CHANGES© NEWSLETTER

The Dead Sea is dying
 The Dead Sea is dying, with the world's saltiest water body threatened by  
a lack of fresh water and an increasingly tense political situation,  
environmentalists have warned. The bare, sun-baked landscape around the  
Dead Sea -- the lowest point on earth which is bordered by Israel, Jordan  
and the West Bank -- has since Biblical times been fed by the Jordan  
river's fresh water. But that has been systematically diverted for  
agricultural and hydroelectric projects, while an evaporation basin for  
farming world-famous Dead Sea minerals has lowered the water level by one  
metre (three feet) a year for the past two decades. Now, warns Gideon  
Bromberg of Friends of the Earth Israel, the whole area is headed for  
ecological disaster unless serious measures are taken. "The ecological  
situation is catastrophic," Bromberg told AFP. "In 50 years, the Dead Sea  
has lost a third of its surface area and its water level is continuing to  
drop rapidly." "For the time being nothing concrete has been undertaken,"  
he said, adding that the Dead Sea has lost 98 percent of the fresh water  
it previously had from the Jordan River which today has become "a drain".  
The consequences are particularly serious on the western Israeli and West  
Bank shores, he said. Every year new cracks appear in the seabed, draining  
more waters away. Lucrative thermal spas such as those at Ein Gedi in  
Israel have seen the salty waters retreat two kilometres (about one and a  
half miles). "We have discovered 1,650 holes and crevasses, some of them  
dozens of metres deep," Eli Raz, a geologist specialising in the Dead Sea,  
told AFP. The holes are mainly caused by rain water coming down from  
surrounding mountains and dissolving salt crystals that had previously  
plugged access to underground caverns. Raz said the holes are mainly in  
inaccessible areas and are not yet threatening infrastructure such as  
buildings or the roads that bring thousands of tourists to the Dead Sea  
every year, as they have done for millennia, to enjoy the sparse beauty of  
the surroundings and the health benefits of the water. The mineral-rich  
water combined with the higher atmospheric pressure of the world's lowest  
land depression and lack of hay fever causing pollens in the air have  
excellent benefits. Last July, the World Bank approved a feasibility study  
for a plan to build a 200-kilometre (120-mile) canal to bring water from  
the Red Sea to the south. The two-year study by Israelis, Palestinians and  
Jordanians is to cost 15.5 million dollars and will be financed by foreign  
donors. If the feasibility study give the go-ahead, the project will take  
around five years to complete. Its second phase involves building power  
generation and water desalination plants to supply electricity and fresh  
water to Jordan, Israel and the
Palestinian Authority. Experts say the Dead Sea needs some two billion  
cubic metres (528 billion gallons) of water annually from the Red Sea  
because 66 billion cubic metres (17.4 trillion gallons) have evaporated  
through industrial use. But since the victory of Islamist militant  
movement Hamas in January's Palestinian elections, Israel has cut  
virtually all contacts with the Palestinian Authority, further  
complicating the delicate situation. Moreover, some ecologists are  
concerned that the canal project will cause more damage than good,  
upsetting the Dead Sea's delicate equilibrium by bringing salt water in to  
replace the depleted supply of fresh water. Some 50 kilometres (30 miles)  
long by 17 kilometres wide at its broadest point, the Dead Sea's water  
level is 412 metres below the Mediterranean Sea and is famed as the  
saltiest body of water in the world, around 10 times more saline than the  
oceans. Both Israel and Jordan have set up nature reserves around the Dead  
Sea, home to ibexes, camels, foxes and the occasional leopard. The area is  
also famous for having preserved the Dead Sea Scrolls in caves that served  
as libraries on the sea's northern shore for 2,000 years.
 Kristen Mariana Neiling

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