Water input requirements of the rapidly shrinking Dead Sea (original) (raw)
Related papers
2010
The Dead Sea has been experiencing a severe drop in level since 1978 with an average of 0.7 m/a due to the accelerating water consumption in its catchment and stood in 2008 at-420 m. In this study, a terrain model of the surface area and water volume of the Dead Sea was developed from the SRTM data using ArcGIS. The model shows that the lake shrinks on average by 4 km 2 /a in area and by 0.47 km 3 /a in volume, amounting to a cumulative loss of 14 km 3 in the last 30 years. The receding level leaves almost annually shoreline terraces recorded here for the first time by DGPS field surveys. The terrace altitudes were correlated among the different profiles and dated to specific years of the lake level regression, illustrating the tight correlation between the morphology of the terrace sequence and the receding lake level. Our volume-level model and previous work on groundwater inflow suggest that the projected Dead SeaRed Sea channel must have a carrying capacity of >0.9 km 3 /a in order to slowly refill the lake to its former level. The channel will also exploit the net altitude of 400 m to produce hydro-energy and create a sustainable system of electricity generation and freshwater production by desalinization. Moreover, such a channel will maintain tourism and potash industry of the Dead Sea and reduce the natural hazard caused by the lake recession.
The water balance of the Dead Sea: an integrated approach
Hydrological Processes, 2000
The Dead Sea is the lowest spot on Earth. It is a closed saline lake located in the middle of the Jordan Rift Valley between Lake Tiberias and the Red Sea. Its major tributaries are the Jordan River itself and the Dead Sea side wadis. The Dead Sea has a unique ecosystem and its water has curative, industrial and recreational signi®cance. The level of the Dead Sea has been continuously falling since the early 1930s at an average rate of 0 . 7 m per year. The water level, as of February 1998, is about 410 . 9 m below mean sea level. In this paper, a water balance model is developed for the Dead Sea by considering dierent hydrological components of this water balance, including precipitation, runo, evaporation and groundwater¯ow. This model is calibrated based on historical levels of the Dead Sea. Dierent scenarios are investigated, including the proposed Dead Sea±Red Sea Canal. This project is supposed to halt the shrinking of the Dead Sea and restore it to pre-1950 levels in the next century.
Monitoring of Dead Sea water surface variation using multi-temporal satellite data and GIS
Arabian Journal of …
Remote sensing (RS) and geographic information systems (GIS) are very useful for environmental-related studies, particularly in the field of surface water studies such as monitoring of lakes. The Dead Sea is exposed to very high evaporating process with considerable scarcity of water sources, thus leading to a remarkable shrinkage in its water surface area. The lake suffers from dry out due to the negative balance of water cycle during the previous four decades. This paper discusses the application of RS, GIS, and Global Positioning System to estimate the lowering and the shrinkage of Dead Sea water surface over the period 1810-2005. A set of multitemporal remote sensing images were collected and processed to show the lakes aerial extend shrinkage from 1973 up to 2004. Remote sensing data were used to extract spatial information and to compute the surface areas for Dead Sea for various years. The current study aims at estimating the fluctuation of Dead Sea level over the study period with special emphasis on the environmental impact assessment that includes the degradation level of the Dead Sea. The results indicated that there is a decrease of 20 m in the level of the Dead Sea that has occurred during the study period. Further, the results showed that the water surface area of the Dead Sea has shrunk from 934.26 km 2 in 1973 to 640.62 km 2 in 2004.
The effect of climate and anthropogenic sea level changes on Israeli coastal aquifers
The effects of base (sea or lake) level changes on the location and elevation of the groundwater divide were examined in the hydrological system between the Mediterranean Sea and the Dead Sea. Steadystate simulations were conducted with a 1-D analytical model and transient conditions were simulated using FEFLOW groundwater modeling software. Two hydrological scenarios were simulated: (a) a transition to a new steady-state, following the expected drop of 150 m of the Dead Sea level; and (b) the time of the precursor of the Dead Sea (Lisan Lake), some 20,000 years ago, when the lake level was about 250 m above the present-day Dead Sea level and the Mediterranean Sea level was 120 m below its present one. The results of the simulations show that the Dead Sea level drop has led to a progressive decline in the groundwater level up to several kilometers inland from the shoreline. The hydraulic gradient increases, and thus the discharge to the lake also increases at the expense of the storage, and also due to a small enlargement of the recharge zone by a $600 m shift of the divide.
International Journal of Water, 2016
The surrounding area of the Dead Sea, especially the west side, suffers from many hydrological problems. It is necessary to maintain a type of balance between surface water exploitation through the Wadi and at the same time allow a sufficient amount of flow to the Dead Sea to ensure its sustainability. In this study, we choose one of the large tributaries in the western side of the Dead Sea basin. The stream was modelled for runoff response to different rainfall amounts and climate conditions. The model data show that normal average events contribute about 18-22 MCM annually to the Dead Sea. The reoccurrence of dry season such as 2005/2006 shows an adverse effect on the Dead Sea. In the rainy season 1991/1992, there was a higher amount of rainfall over the study area that reached around 155 MCM. Despite the presence of this high amount, most of the recharge was lost to the ground as groundwater recharge. The total loss (rather than surface runoff) was much higher (77%). Moreover, 50% less precipitation in 2006 decreased the Dead Sea by 5 metres within five years, and a 60% increase of precipitation in 1992 raised the water level 2 metres only for two to three succeeding years.
Journal of Hydrology, 2009
The effects of base (sea or lake) level changes on the location and elevation of the groundwater divide were examined in the hydrological system between the Mediterranean Sea and the Dead Sea. Steadystate simulations were conducted with a 1-D analytical model and transient conditions were simulated using FEFLOW groundwater modeling software. Two hydrological scenarios were simulated: (a) a transition to a new steady-state, following the expected drop of 150 m of the Dead Sea level; and (b) the time of the precursor of the Dead Sea (Lisan Lake), some 20,000 years ago, when the lake level was about 250 m above the present-day Dead Sea level and the Mediterranean Sea level was 120 m below its present one. The results of the simulations show that the Dead Sea level drop has led to a progressive decline in the groundwater level up to several kilometers inland from the shoreline. The hydraulic gradient increases, and thus the discharge to the lake also increases at the expense of the storage, and also due to a small enlargement of the recharge zone by a $600 m shift of the divide.
Modelling the water balance of the Eastern catchment of the Dead Sea under data scarcity
Groundwater is the main water resource in Jordan and the only source in some areas. Anthropogenic changes represented by overexploitation and land use changes, together with natural changes represented by climatic changes directly affecting this main water resource. The annual average abstraction from groundwater basins of Jordan exceeds the average recharge by 159%. The over-pumping ratio ranges from 146% in minor aquifers to 235% in major rechargeable aquifers. Land use changes and deterioration, such as urbanization and agriculture are the most important anthropogenic influences on climate, while urbanization is the most powerful and most visible anthropogenic force on earth-affecting its surface, atmosphere, and seas; its biodiversity and its people. On the other hand, clear evidences are showing that climatic changes are taking place in the region.
2011
In this paper water and salt mass balances for the Dead Sea were modeled. Precipitation, evaporation, river discharges, ground water flows, input/output from potash companies and salt production, and brine discharge were included in the models. The mixing time in the Dead Sea was modeled using a single-layer (well-mixed) a two-layer (stratified) system. Using the single-layer approach the water level was predicted to change from 411 m below mean sea level (bmsl) (in 1997) to 391 m and 479 m bmsl (in 2097) based on water mass balances including and excluding brine discharge, respectively, and to reach 402 m and 444 m for the two cases based on a salt mass balance. In the two-layer approach the water level after 100 years was predicted to change from 411 m bmsl (1997) to 397 m and 488 m for a water mass balance including and excluding brine discharge, respectively, and to reach 387 m and 425 m for the two cases using a salt mass balance. The water mixing time using the single-layer description increased from 58 to 116 years when excluding brine discharge. Using the two-layer approach the exchange or mixing time increased in both layers, when adding brine discharge to the system, from 1.2 to 1.7 years and 11 to 15.3 years in the upper and lower layers, respectively. Good agreement was found between the models and historical data.