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The
water level of the Dead Sea is declining at a rate of one meter per year
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In
one of the most politically tense regions of the world, researchers are putting
aside their political sensitivities to collectively create a sustainable
environment for their people and the creatures of nature that share it with
them.
The
land that was once referred to by Arabs simply as Ash-sham, comprising what is
now Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, is one of the most fertile in
all of the Middle East. This same land is also facing an imminent water crisis;
one both of quantity and quality. And it is not only the land that is suffering;
complete ecosystems are in danger of disappearing forever, and the wellbeing of
its occupants is at stake, if immediate measures are not taken to save them.
The
Lowest Point on Earth
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The Dead Sea basin is home to over 450 species of plants
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At
the lowest point on Earth, 417.5 meters below sea level, lies a sea. A dead sea;
or so one might imagine, its waters devoid of any life form other than an
endemic species of hypersaline-tolerant bacteria, of which even these have not
been seen since the mid-1990s. The waters of this dead sea—The Dead
Sea—are 10 times more salty than those of the ocean; so salty they can corrode
iron and stainless steal. A curious attempt to taste the water brings a
sensation that not even pure table salt can produce, leaving a residual painful
sting on that too-curious tongue.
The
Dead Sea, however, contrary to what its morbid name suggests, supports an
ecosystem that is home and habitat to over 600 species of plants, animals, and
fish, many of which are rare or endangered. It is also home to several nature
reserves.
The
Dead Sea basin is an important tourist destination, especially for members of
the three monotheistic religions; Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. For it is
here where Jesus is said to have been baptized, where a cave exists where the
prophet Lot is said to have stayed, and where the fortress of Masada stands on a
mountain overlooking the sea’s western shores, signifying Jewish resistance to
Roman slavery over 2,000 years ago. The Dead Sea basin also boasts the oldest
continuously inhabited city on Earth, the city of Jericho. And in recent times,
it is where the oldest known copy of biblical texts—the Dead Sea Scrolls—was
discovered.
The
Dead Sea, bound on its western shores by Jordan and its eastern shores by
Palestine’s West Bank and Israel, attracts a host of visitors seeking the
purported cosmetic and medicinal benefits of its muds and waters. In addition,
it forms the closest available one-day vacation spot for the peoples of the
region.
The
Dead Sea minerals, including potash, magnesium, and bromide, form a major
portion of the Gross National Product of the countries of Jordan and Israel,
employing over 4,000 people and bringing in annual revenues of US$ 650 million.
A
Dead Sea In Need of Awakening
All
of this is now at stake. Between 1930 and 1997, the water level of the Dead Sea
declined over 21 meters, while it continues to drop at a rate of one meter per
year. It has already lost one third of its original surface area, and its
northern and southern parts have completely separated.
The
reasons are simple. The waters responsible for recharging those lost by
evaporation from this terminal lake are being diverted elsewhere. As much as 90
percent of the Jordan River waters have been diverted by Israel and Jordan,
primarily to serve the agricultural sectors of both countries, leaving a mere 10
percent of the natural flow of the river to reach the Dead Sea. Spring waters
that once fed the Dead Sea are also being diverted, depriving the thirsty lake
of any hope of replenishment.
As
if this were not enough, the mineral extraction industries of both Israel and
Jordan are physically pumping water out of the Sea’s northern basin into its
southern basin, where shallow evaporation ponds have been constructed to
accelerate the evaporation of water and thus allow for the easy extraction of
its rich minerals.
The
results have thus far been devastating.
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Abdel Rahman Sultan from FoEME Jordan demonstrates two huge sinkholes in the midst of agricultural land
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The
rapidly dropping sea level has been accompanied by a drop in the water table
along the coasts. This has resulted in a multitude of problems. Springs and
their associated habitats are drying up, threatening the rare species that
inhabit the Dead Sea basin. Estuarine ecosystems (where the freshwater from
springs meets the saline waters of the Dead Sea) are also disappearing. And, as
the groundwater levels drop, salts are dissolved from the soil, leaving it
porous and unstable. As a result, sinkholes have developed with the land
becoming prone to caving in on itself, sometimes forming craters as large as 15
meters in diameter. Immense damage has consequently been done to agricultural
lands and to infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, and human safety in the
region is in constant jeopardy.
The
sinkholes and receding water levels form a serious threat to the local tourism
industry. Hotels once residing near the shores of the sea are now gradually
falling back from the coastline, and destruction to infrastructure from the
sinkholes is having a major economic impact on the industry. In addition, the
mudflats forming in place of the receding coastlines are seriously endangering
the lives of humans, animals, and birds, acting similar to quicksand, and making
rescue difficult for those trapped in its muddy grasp.
The
receding water levels have even had a negative impact on the mineral extraction
industries, which must endure costly relocation of their pumping stations every
10 years. The mineral extraction industries, however, have the least to complain
about; as the sea level drops, the water becomes more saline, resulting in an
increased concentration of minerals that are more rapidly extracted from the
evaporation ponds.
Putting
Numbers to Conservation Value
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Researchers attempted to quantify such things as the aesthetic pleasures derived from visiting the basin
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Friends
of the Earth Middle East (FoEME), with its three offices in Amman, Bethlehem,
and Jerusalem, has been among the first to frantically ring the warning bells.
Calls have been made to all three bordering governments and to the international
community to register the Dead Sea basin as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and/or
World Heritage Site. This would require all three governments to work jointly to
develop and implement a plan for the sustainable development of the basin. And
although all countries involved have responded positively in principle, says
FoEME, none have yet committed to its adoption and implementation.
It
is this dire situation that motivated FoEME to approach the International
Development Research Center (IDRC) to fund a project towards advancing
conservation and sustainable development of the Dead Sea basin.
Researchers
from Jordan, Israel, Palestine, and Canada coordinated their efforts both to
economically quantify the various water uses affecting the Dead Sea basin, and
to study three North American models of joint water management in the Great
Lakes region, to draw comparisons between these models and similar models that
might suit joint management of the Dead Sea waters.
The
various stakeholders in the Dead Sea basin were first identified, which included
agriculture, the mineral extraction industry, the tourism industry, wildlife and
environmental enthusiasts, the residents of the region, and the international
community.
An
economic analysis was performed, placing emphasis on valuation of non-market
goods, such as recreation and environmental quality, which are often left out of
policy analyses due to the difficulty in quantifying them. Using a method known
as contingent valuation, the researchers attempted to quantify such values as
the sense of satisfaction one gets from knowing that something exists and will
continue to exist for future generations, and the satisfaction one gains from
hiking and from the aesthetic pleasures derived from visiting the basin.
Large
random samples of local residents in Palestine, Jordan, and Israel were thus
surveyed on how much they would be willing to pay annually towards a fund to
preserve the Dead Sea; an indication of the value they place on these non-market
goods. Defined as Willingness to Pay (WTP), all three peoples demonstrated a
positive attitude despite their low incomes, with a total WTP topping US$ 59
million annually. This result did not include a WTP figure from the
international community, which if added, is expected to at least double this
value using the most conservative estimates.
Researchers
then estimated some of the use-values of preservation of the Dead Sea basin by
quantifying the economic returns to tourism in the Dead Sea, and determining how
these returns might be negatively affected over time by the deterioration of
environmental quality in the basin. All costs incurred in a visit to the Dead
Sea basin, including direct costs from travel and lodging, and indirect costs
from lost wages, were used to calculate the overall travel cost. The travel cost
studies were conducted by surveying samples of Israeli and Jordanian visitors to
the Dead Sea basin. Palestinians were not surveyed since they do not have
control over tourist facilities along their shorelines, nor do they have the
freedom of travel to visit the Dead Sea shores. A total consumer benefit from
visitation to the Dead Sea was calculated, with estimations of consumer benefit
of Palestinians added to the Israeli and Jordanian results, giving a total
national annual consumer surplus of US$ 193 million for the three countries
together.
FoEME
researchers estimated that a drop in visitation rates by local tourists of 0.67
percent per year can be attributed to drop in sea level and the associated
damages resulting from this drop. Based on this, and including estimates for
international travelers, the researchers estimated that US$ 4.2 billion of
undiscounted consumer surplus will be lost over the next 60 years due to the
drop in sea level.
Selling
Water Cheap
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Agriculture consumes 75% of Jordan’s water, but represents only 2% of its GDP
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On
the other hand, the annual return on water used for agriculture was estimated to
be US$ 377 million for the region as a whole. According to World Bank figures,
whereas agriculture in Jordan consumes 75 percent of the country’s water, it
represents only 2 percent of the value added to its Gross Domestic Product.
Similarly, agriculture consumes 60 percent of water in Israel, yet provides less
than 2 percent of the country’s Gross National Product and of total
employment. Palestinian water use in agriculture has a relatively minor impact
on the overall water balance of the Dead Sea.
It
is this water, which is providing so little economically to the countries
involved, that is being diverted from recharging the Dead Sea. Abdel Rahman
Sultan from FoEME’s Amman office and a researcher in the FoEME study explained
that a large portion of agricultural produce in the region is being exported
with minimal financial gain. “Why sell our water cheap?” he asked. Sultan
believes that it might be more economically efficient to decrease the amount of
water used in agriculture, growing only what will sustain the country, and put
this water into tourism by conserving the Dead Sea basin. Other industries that
will not cost the country water should also be encouraged, such as the IT
industry, he added.
Not
only is there minimal financial gain from diverting precious waters from
recharging the Dead Sea into agriculture, but the resulting damages from these
diversions and the consequent drop in Dead Sea levels have been devastating.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars in recurrent costs have been lost from
sinkholes that have damaged roads, agricultural lands, tourism development, and
evaporation ponds. These damages and the imminent danger of more to come have
also prevented the implementation of development projects worth millions of
dollars more.
FoEME
researchers believe that it is obvious from the above results that all three
peoples in the region “place a high economic value on the conservation of the
Dead Sea basin…There are also clear economic benefits to doing so,” reads
their final report.
In
order to achieve this, however, joint management of the region’s waters is
required. This is easier said than done. A group of Israeli, Jordanian, and
Palestinian experts surveyed by Dr. Elly Hermon, a Canadian partner in the
study, agreed that the region’s governments should make use of the experience
gained by the transboundary water management of the Great Lakes in North America
between the United States and Canada. This would require not only
inter-governmental cooperation, but also intra-governmental coordination at both
the ministerial and local government levels.
In
a region where violence, political uncertainties, and mistrust are part of the
day-to-day experience, it would seem that achieving this sort of cooperation is
far-fetched. Violet Qumsieh, from FoEME’s Bethlehem office and one of the
authors of the economic analysis portion of the study, believes in the
importance of an immediate resolution to the problems facing the Jordan River
and Dead Sea basins. “Political problems could take years to be solved and at
that time we will find that we have lost the Dead Sea and the Jordan River
forever,” she emphasized. Munqeth Mehyar, director of FoEME’s Amman office
and another author of the same portion of the study agrees. “We must sit down
together,” he concurred. “There is no other way of doing it.”
* This is an edited version of an as yet unpublished article commissioned by the International Development Research Center (IDRC) as a case study of its People, Land and Water projects in the Middle East. It has been published with the IDRC’s permission.
**
Nadia El-Awady is IslamOnline.net's deputy editor-in-chief and managing science editor. Nadia won first prize of the 2004 WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene for All) Media Award for her article The Nile and its People: What Goes Around Comes Around. She is also the chair of the World Federation of Science Journalists’ program committee and the president of the Arab Association of Science Journalists. She has a bachelor's degree in medicine from Cairo University and is currently studying for a masters degree in journalism and mass communications at the American University in Cairo. You can reach her at:
ScienceTech@iolteam.com.
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