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GHOR HADITHA, Jordan: The Dead Sea may soon shrink to a lifeless pond as Middle East political strife blocks vital measures needed to halt the decay of the world's lowest and saltiest body of water, experts said.
The surface level is plunging by a metre a year and nothing has yet been done to reverse the decline because of a lack of political cooperation as a result of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The shoreline has receded by more than a kilometre in some places and the world-famous lake, a key tourism destination renowned for the beneficial effect of its minerals, could dry out by 2050, according to some calculations.
"It might be confined into a small pond. It is likely to happen and this is extremely serious. Nobody is doing anything now to save it," said water expert Dureid Mahasneh, a former Jordan Valley Authority chief.
"Saving the Dead Sea is a regional issue, and if you take the heritage, environmental and historical importance, or even the geographical importance, it is an international issue."
Landlocked between Jordan, Israel and the West Bank, the Dead Sea is rapidly vanishing because water which previously flowed into the lake is being diverted and also extracted to service industry and agriculture.
Jordan decided in September to build a two-billion-dollar pipeline from the Red Sea to start refilling the Dead Sea without help from proposed partners Israel and the Palestinian Authority. However, that project is controversial and Mahasneh stressed that Jordan alone is not capable of solving the Dead Sea's problems.
The degradation began in the 1960s when Israel, Jordan and Syria began to divert water from the Jordan River, the Dead Sea's main supplier.
For decades, the three neighbouring countries have taken around 95 per cent of the river's flow for agricultural and industrial use. Israel alone diverts more than 60 per cent of the river.
The impact on the Dead Sea has been compounded by a drop in groundwater levels as rain water from surrounding mountains dissolved salt deposits that had previously plugged access to underground caverns.
Industrial operations around the shores of the lake also contribute to its problems.
Both Israel and Jordan have set up massive evaporation pools to vaporise Dead Sea water for the production of phosphate, while five-star hotels have sprung up along its shores, where tourists flock for the curative powers of the sea mud and minerals.
The salty lake is currently 67 kilometres long and 18 kilometres wide.
The top of the water was already 395 metres under global sea level in the 1960s but the drying out has lowered the surface further to minus 422 metres, according to Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME).
Mahasneh said climate change is aggravating the crisis. "Climate change affected everything," he said. "It is an umbrella for many problems, including short rainfall.
"Nothing is being seriously done to tackle climate change. Sustainable and integrated solutions are needed."
The World Bank has funded a two-year study of the plan for a pipeline from the Red Sea to replenish the Dead Sea.
The project, agreed in outline by Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan in 2005, aims to channel two billion cubic metres of water a year via a 200-kilometre canal to produce fresh water and generate electricity as well as raise the Dead Sea.
But some environmentalists said the scheme could harm the Dead Sea further by changing its unique chemistry by introducing Red Sea water.
Jordan's Environment Minister Khaled Irani said: "Let's wait and see the results of the study of the environmental impact."
"We might not go ahead with the project if it is going to create a major mess with the ecosystem, but if we can bring water to the Dead Sea and maintain the same ecological quality of the Dead Sea, why not?"
Irani said Jordan will highlight the Dead Sea's problems at the Copenhagen summit on climate change next month.
"We will raise those issues in Copenhagen and say that Jordan is heavily affected and urge developed countries to allocate more resources to contribute to saving the Dead Sea," he said.
- AFP/sc
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