The Dead Sea Canal Project
The Dead Sea, a prime water source for the populations of Israel and Jordan, is drying up. If the situation continues on unabated the sea will be completely dry by the year 2050, and the resulting effect on the wildlife, ecology, industry and human population of the surrounding region will be devastating. Until now there has been no agreement between the two countries on how to fairly share the water supply between them. And over the decades, each country has had their own, separate water development projects, despite their shared reliance on the same water source.
Nearly sixty years ago the then American president Dwight D. Eisenhower was very aware of the long-term threat to the Dead Sea and appointed someone to develop a solution to the water shortage problem in the Jordan Valley. Under the resulting ‘Johnston Plan’, third parties and international authorities, rather than the adversarial parties most directly affected, would determine water rights and propose water development projects. As part of the process, the United Nations, on behalf of the Arab League, had also requested expert input from the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the American hydroelectric agency. The resulting TVA study recommended diversion works, dams, reservoirs and irrigation, and proposed the nearby Lake Tiberias as a storage reservoir. However, the Arab League rejected the TVA study, and Israel and Jordan kept their separate water projects, as before.
The local climate of the Dead Sea is very hot and dry, and the Judean Hills block any rain from reaching farther inland. The average annual rainfall is only about 70 mm per year, with the southern end of the sea having some 300 cloudless days per year, humidity between around 35%, and an average monthly temperature of 16-34 C. As a result, other than very minimal inflow from the also diminishing Jordan River, there is no source of fresh water entering the sea. The Dead Sea is well named because the number of creatures that can survive now in the salty water is small. The level of the sea was highest in recent history during the 1930s, before Israel and Jordan embarked on their national water projects.
Funding for the estimated USD $15 billion Dead Sea Canal Plan, which has recently been approved by the World Bank, will first link the Red Sea to the Dead Sea with a 180-kilometre channel to transport water inland. Half of the water would go directly into a large desalination plant jointly run by Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. Then the construction of the canal will supply 2 billion cubic metres of water per year to first increase, then maintain, the water levels in the Dead Sea. If this is not done it will be completely dried out by 2050, say the experts, as it is dropping one metre per year. The project’s primary purpose is to create a sustainable source of drinkable water but also to make possible power production and the reversal of the Dead Sea’s dropping table. The benefits will be enormous.
