קריאה: ים שנעלם

Dead Sea — ים המלח. Red Sea — ים סוף. Jordan River — נהר הירדן. Jordan, Jordanian — ירדן, ירדני. Syria — סוריה. sinkhole — בולען. evaporate — להתאדות, לאדות. dissolve — להמיס, להתמוסס. retreat — לסגת. pipeline — צינור ארוך (להעברת מים או גז). fraction — חלק קטן. refill — למלא מחדש.

Visitors who come to the Dead Sea for the first time are often surprised by two things. The first is the strange pleasure of floating on water that is almost ten times saltier than the ocean. The second is a sign near some of the beaches that warns them not to leave the path. The reason for the warning cannot be seen from the road, but it is one of the most worrying environmental stories in the region: the lowest sea on Earth is slowly disappearing.

The numbers are hard to ignore. Since the 1960s, the surface of the Dead Sea has fallen by more than thirty metres, and today it drops by over a metre every year. The sea has also split in two. The northern part is still a deep lake, while the southern part has become a series of shallow pools used by industry.

To understand why, scientists point to the Jordan River. For thousands of years, it carried fresh water from the north into the sea. Since the middle of the last century, however, Israel, Jordan and Syria have taken most of that water for drinking and farming, so only a small fraction reaches the sea today. In a region where every drop of water is precious, this was hardly surprising. A second cause is industry. On both the Israeli and the Jordanian sides, factories pump sea water into huge pools, where the sun evaporates it and leaves behind valuable minerals.

The falling water has created a new danger. As the sea retreats, fresh water under the ground flows into areas where salt water used to be. It dissolves thick layers of salt buried below the surface and leaves empty spaces behind. Eventually, the ground above them collapses without warning, and a hole that can be several metres deep appears. Thousands of these sinkholes have opened along the shore, swallowing parts of roads, beaches and farms. That is why the signs tell visitors to stay on the path.

Over the years, several solutions have been suggested. The most ambitious was a plan to bring water from the Red Sea through a pipeline more than a hundred and fifty kilometres long. Supporters argued that it would refill the Dead Sea and provide drinking water at the same time. Critics warned that mixing two very different kinds of water could turn the surface of the sea white or even red. The project was never built. Others believe that the only real answer is to let more water flow down the Jordan again, which would require cooperation between neighbours who do not always agree.

None of these solutions is easy, and none is cheap. Yet the Dead Sea is far more than a tourist attraction. It is a unique natural environment, and a place that has attracted travellers since ancient times. Whether people will still be able to float in it fifty years from now may depend on decisions that are made in the next few decades.