Red Sea–Dead Sea Water Conveyance
The water level in the Dead Sea is shrinking at a rate of more than one metre per year, and its surface area has shrunk by about 33% since the 1960s.
The decline of the Dead Sea level is causing major local environmental problems, including sinkholes and receding shorelines.
[2] The Red Sea–Dead Sea conduit (RSDSC) was proposed at the end of the 1960s and was analysed as part of the peace process between Israel and Jordan.
The project was called "the Peace conduit" and was proposed to be located on Jordanian territory for financial and implementation reasons.
[citation needed] In June 2009, after a meeting with World Bank President Robert Zoellick, the Israeli Regional Cooperation Minister, Silvan Shalom, announced a pilot project to build a "pilot" pipe 180 km long from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea.
Jordan's ministry of Water and Irrigation said that the $100 million first phase of the project would begin construction in the first quarter of 2018, and would be completed by 2021.
[15] In June 2021, it was reported that the water level in the Dead Sea was shrinking at a rate of more than one metre per year, and that its surface area had shrunk by about 33% since the 1960s.
[1] The proposed conveyance would have pumped seawater 230 meters uphill from the Red Sea's Gulf of Aqaba through the Arabah Valley in Jordan.
A letter to the World Bank was included in its introduction, in which the science team's leader explained that "it is preferable to study and mitigate unexpected impacts and phenomena which may arise when seawater first mixes in the Dead Sea, before a full scale RSDSC is implemented.
[20] The report of Thetis SpA, the Interuniversity Institute For Marine Sciences In Eilat, Marine Science Station University of Jordan and Yarmouk University, Aqaba and Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research institute, states:[21] The scheme had the potential to cause Damage to the natural landscape and ecosystem of the Arabah, due to the construction process, and the increase in humidity caused by the open canal segments.
In the event that the pipeline ruptures (due to earthquake risk given the location in the Jordan Rift Valley), these aquifers will be irreparably damaged.
The pipeline will cross areas of important cultural heritage, such as Wadi Finan, where the earliest copper mining and extraction in the world took place.
[22][23] Israeli environmental NGOs say that the reestablishment of the Jordan River to its natural state was a better solution to the decline of the Dead Sea than the proposed canal.
[24] In 2005, the proposal also generated some concern by the chairman of Egypt's Suez Canal Authority, who argued that the canal will increase seismic activity in the region, provide Israel with water for cooling its nuclear reactor near Dimona, develop settlements in the Negev Desert, and increase well salinity.
The World Bank study recommended re-routing the conduit to avoid the geological faults of the Araba Valley.
On the same program, scientist Ittai Gavrieli discussed indirect problems such as excreting reject brine into the Mediterranean Sea.
Gavrieli and others opined that the Dead Sea basin is a unique example of human-caused climate change that would serve as a valuable geological park.
