Islands of salt.. An inevitable future for the Dead Sea unless it is saved

The Dead Sea, southwest of Jordan

- Khaled Al-Jaarat, a young man in his twenties, is moving his timber and chairs down towards the sea to set up a new rest house to receive tourists and visitors to the Dead Sea.

He adds to Al Jazeera Net, "The shores of the Dead Sea are expanding at the expense of water, and whenever the amount of water in the sea decreases, we are forced to move the rest houses to new places close to the water.

The receding waters of the Dead Sea deprive many visitors and patients from enjoying its therapeutic waters (Al-Jazeera)

The number of visitors decreased

"The decrease in the quantities of water in the Dead Sea deprived many visitors and patients from enjoying its therapeutic water and mud," Omar Al-Hwaiti, who works in the service of visitors on the shores of the Dead Sea, tells Al Jazeera Net.

Al-Hwaiti added: The number of visitors to the Dead Sea decreased as a result of the expansion of the beach area, and the decrease in water from street level for long distances, which led to depriving patients of the Dead Sea water and mud for healing from access to those areas.

According to experts, this problem will lead to the drying up of the Dead Sea’s water, especially as it loses one meter of its water annually, due to the state of climate change, the high temperatures, the scarcity of rain there, and the poor supply of the sea with water from the usual river tributaries, especially the Jordan River.

This resulted in the emergence of salt islands along the shores of the Dead Sea, showing the state of receding water and cratering as a result of the decline in the sea level, increasing the width of the beach from one meter to 1.5 meters annually, and decreasing its depths by an average of one meter.

The water surface area of ​​the sea has decreased to 650 km in the year 2019, after it was 950 km in 2000, and the sea level has decreased to 22 meters during the past 20 years.

Salt islands along the shores of the Dead Sea illustrate the state of receding water (the island)

Israel's confiscation of water

The problem of the drying up of the Dead Sea began 54 years ago, according to the former Jordanian Minister of Water Raed Abu Al-Saud, after the Israeli occupation of the West Bank lands in 1967, the confiscation of large quantities of the Jordan River water for agricultural projects, the drying up of Lake Houla in the Bisan regions, and its stopping from supplying the sea water dead.

Abu Al-Saud adds to Al-Jazeera Net that before this occupation, the Dead Sea used to reach one billion and 350 million cubic meters of water from the Jordan River annually, but the Israeli side's transfer of this water to agricultural projects, south of occupied Palestine, deprived the sea of ​​1.1 billion cubic meters, and the sea now reaches 250 One million meters annually.

He added that Jordan was counting on the Bahrain Red and Dead conveyor project to "save the Dead Sea from drying out, by supplying it with large quantities of water, but the project's stumbling block will prevent it from being saved, and the Dead Sea will remain facing its problem alone."

Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority signed an agreement to implement the Bahrain conveyor project, but "the Israeli intransigence of the former Netanyahu government prevented the implementation of the project," according to an official source.

The idea of ​​the project is to link the Red Sea in the south and the Dead Sea in the north by a canal, in order to raise the level of the Dead Sea by providing it with quantities of water that reach in its final stage 700 million cubic meters annually.

The problem of the drying up of the Dead Sea began 54 years ago with the Israeli occupation of Palestine (Al-Jazeera)

Groundwater loss and tourism impact

The problem of the receding sea water does not stop there, but threatens to "collapse the ecosystem in the rarest region in the world," according to the CEO of the Friends of the Dead Sea Association, Zaid Al-Swalqa.

Al-Salqa told Al-Jazeera Net that the decrease in the waters of the Dead Sea led to "the loss of the groundwater on which the residents of the nearby areas depend for drinking and agriculture, after it flowed towards the sea, and its submersion into deeper layers of earth, and the occurrence of subterranean pits and collapses, due to the composition of the soil there, and the decline in the quantities of water in Sea".

He believes in the failure of the Bahrain conveyor project, "the last chance to save the Dead Sea is lost, especially since the official side does not have any plans or projects to save it," calling on the international community and environmental protection organizations to intervene to save this global heritage.

The Dead Sea is considered the lowest point in the world, its drop is 436 meters higher than the level of the Red Sea, and it is an attraction for tourists and patients who visit its waters for treatment. The Dead Sea is adjacent to the Baptism Site of Jesus, peace be upon him, south of the Jordan River.

The sea is receding daily and the new saline soil spaces are expanding (Al-Jazeera)

But the problem of the Dead Sea’s receding water has become “a dilemma for hotels and tourist facilities located on the seashore,” according to the hotel investor, Michel Nazzal.

Nazzal said in an interview with Al Jazeera Net, "The new exposed areas exceed 500 meters, a decrease in some facilities, which prevents tourists, especially the elderly, from accessing therapeutic sea water," in addition to the danger of these areas from the occurrence of subversive pits in the future.

industrial damage

Duraid Mahasneh, an expert in the field of water and environment, described the future of the Dead Sea as “frightening”, especially after the Bahrain Conveyor Project stopped and its supply of Red Sea water was stopped, with the decrease in rainfall and the construction of more dams on the streams of the valleys that feed the sea with water.

Damage from the Dead Sea’s receding water will affect the saline industrial sectors (Al-Jazeera)

He continued to Al Jazeera Net that the state of damage from the decline in the waters of the Dead Sea will extend to the saline industrial sectors built on its sides, especially the potash and bromine industries and others.

Among the environmental, economic and tourism risks, the Dead Sea remains in danger of losing it day after day, reaching salty bottoms and a small lake with shallow water 50 years from now.