The Problem

The Dead Sea

The Dead Sea is the lowest place on earth.

It attracts tourists from all over the world, who enjoy its healing waters.

The Dead Sea, bordering the Middle Eastern countries is reportedly losing water, with the surface receding at the rate of around three feet annually, due to irrigation water taken out of its tributary, the River Jordan.


The Dead Sea not only provides water for the area, but is also popular with the health and tourism industry thanks to its unique mineral properties. 

The Dead Sea has already lost more than one third of its surface area over the years. The water level is currently dropping by over 1 meter every year and its shoreline is expected to drop from 411 meters to 430 meters below sea level by 2020, according to the environmentalist group EcoPeace Middle East.

Traditionally, the Jordan River is the Dead Sea’s inflow source. However, 50 years ago it was diverted to supply cities, reducing the water inflow level to the Dead Sea to just 5% of its original volume.

The hot and dry climate of the region makes it difficult for the Dead Sea to restore itself. That added to the rapid loss of water has resulted in the increased salinity of the lake.

The group also points out that the Dead Sea is threatened by cosmetic companies that extract mineral water from the region to make beauty products. Hotels and attractions built along the shoreline also release untreated sewage into the Dead Sea.

Most of the damage has been done in the last half-century, when almost all the water that once reached the Dead Sea was diverted to farms and taps. "Everything changed when we started diverting water from the Sea of Galilee," says Mira Edelstein of Friends of the Earth Middle East.

 "The Jordan River used to bring 1.3 billion cu. ft. [37 million cu m] of water a year. Today it's 50 million. That's 2% of what it was."

At the same time, a unique and thirsty industry has been taking water from the sea, accelerating its decline. 

At the southern tip of the sea, the sprawling Dead Sea Works leaches huge quantities of the fertilizer potash from the seawater by funneling water through a canal into vast evaporation ponds in what once was the sea's southern basin. 

The companies claimed to put some of the water back, in addition a similar operation on the Jordanian side, the result is a net loss for an already shrinking lake.