The Dead Sea, lowest point on our planet, some 1,388 feet below sea level is drying at an alarming rate.
The salt lake nestled by Israel, Jordan and the West Bank is shrinking at an alarming rate -- about 3.3 feet per year, according to the environmentalist group EcoPeace MiddleEast. The group suspected that human actions are largely to blame for the debacle.
The Dead Sea needs water from other natural sources surrounding it, such as Jordan River basin. But around the 1960s, some of the water sources the sea relied upon were diverted. Israel, for instance, built a pipeline so that it could supply water throughout the country.
Mineral extraction industries are other main reasons the water levels are declining, experts say. The Dead Sea's minerals have been hailed for their therapeutic properties and can often be found in cosmetics and other consumer products. And then, of course, there's the Middle East's hot, dry climate, which makes it difficult for the lake to replenish itself.
Last year, Israel and Jordan signed a $900 million deal in an effort to stabilize the Dead Sea's water levels. It entails building a canal from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea so that both countries would be able to not only supply water to Israel and Jordan but also to pump much needed water- some 300 million cubic meters annually- into the Dead Sea.
The Dead Sea, known as the Salt Sea in Hebrew, is one of the saltiest bodies of water in the world, with around 34 percent salinity. And because of what has been happening over the years, the salt is only getting saltier.
The sea needs an infusion of 160 billion gallons of water annually to maintain its current size; it gets barely 10 percent of that, Smithsonian reported.
"It's an unfriendly environment for people to live there or to stay there," Moritz Küstner, a photographer said. "It's really salty and if you taste the Dead Sea, it's not tasting like salty water anymore. It's just tasting toxic."
