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The Dead Sea Will Not Die |
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By Ana Jerozolimski*
This lake, emblematic of the Middle East and famous for its therapeutic waters, could lose half its area over the next century. But it will never completely disappear, say scientists.
JERUSALEM - The Dead Sea, a unique body of water shared by Israel and Jordan, is shrinking at an alarming rate. But the Israeli Geological Institute's Amos Bein told Tierramérica that it will never totally dry up.
The lake's surface area was 1,025 square km in 1945. Today it covers just 625 square km. And in 100 years it will be just half that, according to official estimates.
At some points, the shore today is 600 meters from where it was 20 years ago.
Although the warning signs are serious, "the Dead Sea will never die. The physical processes are such that it will seek a new balance, which will probably be reached in 100 or 150 years," says Bein.
The less water the lake holds, the greater its salinity, which slows the evaporation rate. Up to 1945, 1.6 to 1.8 meters evaporated each year. Today the annual pace is 1.2 to 1.4 meters.
And given that it is a "terminal lake" -- as Bein explains -- it has not other natural means for losing water than evaporation, the process towards equilibrium is already underway.
However, there are other, non-natural ways that the Dead Sea loses volume.
Israel and Jordan use much of the water from the rivers that flow into the lake from the north. Vital for human consumption and agriculture, the human impact sharply reduce the volume of water -- exploitation that causes a 75 percent deficit. The remaining 25 percent is caused by the Jordanian and Israeli companies that extract minerals along its southern shores.
Millions of local and foreign tourists visit the Dead Sea each year, having their photographs taken while they easily float in the high saline water.
While the salinity of the oceans is 35 grams per liter, in the Dead Sea it reaches 350 to 370 grams per liter, making swimmers extremely buoyant.
Although aquatic life is not possible in these conditions, the international fame of the Dead Sea comes from the therapeutic characteristics of its waters, which hold 21 minerals, 12 of which are not found anywhere else.
But there are also thermal springs, and the black mud is applied to the body, leaving skin rejuvenated, improving circulation.
Furthermore, the area enjoys a unique climate, with high atmospheric pressure and eight percent more oxygen than the average in the rest of Israel. This is said to improve the atmosphere's protection from the harmful rays of the strong desert sun.
Although the lake will never disappear, its rapid reduction causes several troubling environmental phenomena, related to the sudden sinking of its basin, agree Bein and Galit Cohen, the Environment Ministry official in charge of drafting an action plan for the Dead Sea.
For example, sinkholes 8 to 10 meters deep and several meters in diameter appear in areas formerly covered by the lake, causing buildings to topple. Special reinforcements have been made along the vulnerable highway 90, which leads to Jerusalem.
It is not the only problem associated with the receding waters. "I couldn't reach the sea," Tami Israel, a Jerusalem resident, told Tierramérica. She took her family to spend a weekend at the Dead Sea, but ran into extensive areas covered in mud, making the road to the shore inaccessible.
Because the area is the lowest point on the Earth's land surface, the underground freshwater flows to the Mediterranean or Red Seas, which is an unfortunate phenomenon in the Middle East, where water is in such short supply.
The area where the lake is located was 392 meters below sea level in 1945. Today it is 416.5 meters, and when it reaches the expected balance, in a century, it will have sunk to 520 or 550 meters below sea level.
"The future of the Dead Sea as a natural global resource could be in danger," says Israel's environment minister, Yehudit Naot, who is setting up committees of experts to study the matter.
"Here, teams are not created in order to just bury practical solutions. Here we are aware of the urgency of the problem and the studies are rigorous," Cohen told Tierramérica, well aware of public skepticism.
A potential solution is the construction of the "channel of the seas", which would link the Mediterranean or the Red Sea to the Dead Sea, though studies must be made of the effects of mixing their waters.
Cohen is to present the government with a complete report within a month.
"We must take into account that the situation will not change in 20 or 30 years, given that it takes time to conduct studies, implement solutions and prepare dramatic changes. We must adapt regional development to the existing situation, with special engineering projects that permit protection of areas under threat," said the official.
"But this will not happen overnight," she said.
* Ana Jerozolimski is a Tierramérica contributor.
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