For decades environmentalists have been warning that the Dead Sea, a unique body of water situated between Jordan and Israel, was actually dying as its area has been shrinking at a rate of 1 meter (3.3 feet) per year. At this rate, experts believe that the saltiest sea on earth will dry up by the year 2050 leaving environmental, social and economic ruin in its wake.

Water expert and head of the Friends of the Dead Sea Society Saad Abu Hammour told Al-Monitor that the receding waterline has picked up in the past few years threatening a complete environmental collapse of the Dead Sea, which, at 430.5 meters (1,412 feet) below sea level, is situated at the lowest point on earth. He said that the Red Sea-Dead Sea Water Conveyance project is the only hope to spare the region an environmental catastrophe.

Israel is largely to blame for the drying up of the Dead Sea. For the last four decades it — and to a lesser extent Jordan — has been diverting the waters of the Jordan River, which has been replenishing the Dead Sea for millennia. Climate change, where summer temperatures reach more than 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), has also contributed to the receding coastline. Both Jordan and Israel have multibillion-dollar potash extraction industries in the southern edge of the Dead Sea.

“We have lost hope of saving the Dead Sea since talks over the water conveyance project between Jordan and Israel had stopped since 2017,” Abu Hammour said. Initially the project would deliver 235 million cubic meters of brine and desalinated water to the Dead Sea pumped from the Gulf of Aqaba, he added.