WASHINGTON: The Dead Sea, already the lowest point in the world, appears to be sinking because its waters are being siphoned off agricultural, industrial, and residential use, according to new research.

Located on the Israeli-Jordanian border about 400 metres below sea level, the salty Dead Sea has sunk by six metres during the past decade, according to findings published in the current issue of the Geological Society of America Bulletin.

The drop followed a fall in the water table surrounding the Dead Sea, said the study, “The Lowest Place on Earth is Subsiding.” Researchers said they suspected that when the water table dropped, the soil that held the water collapsed and settled behind it.

Scientists based their conclusions on data from radar satellites that examined changes in ground level along the shores of the Dead Sea. The study suggested the subsidence could be related to gigantic sinkholes that have begun to appear along the shores of the Dead Sea.

“Since the early 1990s, sinkholes and wide subsidence features have become major problems along the Dead Sea shores in Israel and Jordan,” said the study. Researchers have noted that Dead Sea water levels have dropped over 25 meters. Water from the Jordan and Yarmouk rivers that would normally flow into the Dead Sea has been increasingly diverted for agricultural and industrial use.

Recent efforts by Israel and Jordan to coordinate use of the Jordan River have not appealed to environmentalists. Both nations have been pushing the development of two planned industrial complexes that would straddle the river that separates the two countries..—Dawn/InterPress News Service