Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Dead Sea Spa
( 3561000;
www.deadseaspahotel.com
;
Dead Sea Spa Hotel; 8am-6pm)
This spa
focuses primarily on medical treatments, with an in-house dermatologist and physiother-
apist. Entry to the beach, pools and spa costs JD30 at weekends (JD25 on weekdays) and
includes a fitness room, solarium and Dead Sea saltwater pool. A full-body Swedish mas-
sage (JD25) and mud application (JD30) are also available.
SPA
THE DEAD SEA IS DYING
DR ALON TAL
The Dead Sea is the lowest place on earth, and probably one of the hottest. The resulting evaporation produces an
astonishing salinity of 31%, about nine times higher than the oceans, making a dip in the Dead Sea a very salty ex-
perience. The high mineral concentrations mean incredible buoyancy and great photo opportunities - get a snapshot
of your travel companions happily sitting upright on the water reading newspapers. The water's oily minerals also
contain salubrious properties. German health insurance covers periodic visits to the Dead Sea for psoriasis patients
to visit and luxuriate in the healing waters.
Sadly, no natural resource in the Middle East shows more signs of relentless population growth and economic de-
velopment than the Dead Sea. Technically, the sea is a 'terminal lake' into which the Jordan River, along with other
more arid watersheds, deposit their flow. Despite the folk song's characterisation of the River Jordan as 'deep and
wide', in fact it has never been much of a gusher. When Israeli and Jordanian farmers began to divert its water to
produce a new agricultural economy in the 1950s, the flow was reduced to a putrid trickle and the Dead Sea began
to dry up.
In 1900, the river discharged 1.2 trillion litres a year into the Dead Sea, but water levels in the river today are
hardly 10% of the natural flow. The Jordanian and Israeli potash industries in the southern, largely industrial Dead
Sea region exacerbate the water loss by accelerating evaporation in their production processes. The impact is mani-
fested in sink holes, created when underground salt gets washed away by the infiltrating subsurface freshwater flow.
Particularly ubiquitous on the western (Israeli side) of the sea, the ground literally opens up - with people, farming
equipment and even trucks falling in. Perhaps the most acute environmental consequence though is the 27m drop in
the sea's water level, and the long and discouraging walks now required to reach the edge of the retreating beach.
Several solutions have been considered to bring back water to the Dead Sea. A 'Med-Dead' canal utilising the
height drop from the Mediterranean Sea was discarded because of the prohibitively expensive price tag. But a simil-
ar pipeline from the Red Sea is seriously being considered. Dubbed the 'Peace Conduit', the project would pipe wa-
ter from the Gulf of Aqaba to the Dead Sea's southern shore, producing hydroelectricity as well as a desalination
plant that would provide water to Amman. Environmentalists question the anticipated unnatural water chemistry re-
action and the seismic instability of the area. The World Bank, however, recently decided that the US$5 billion pro-
ject was sufficiently serious to justify a $15 million feasibility study.
Dr Alon Tal is a professor in the Desert Ecology Department at Israel's Ben-Gurion University.
