The Jordanian government along with a British firm are planning on constructing a canal to link the Dead Sea to the Red sea to save the Dead sea from drying out.

The canal is about 110-mile long, and would channel roughly five million tonnes of seawater each day into the Dead Sea.

According to Jordanian’s officials and Environmental scientists, the surface area has shrunk by a third to just 240 square miles in the last forty years and vast areas of foreshore have been exposed, pockmarked with dangerous sink holes. The overuse of water by farmers and climate change mean the level of the Dead Sea plunges by about three feet every year. Even though, the Dead Sea has received about a billion tons of water from the Jordan River annually but that amount has dwindled by 90 per cent because of overuse by farmers upriver from the Dead Sea.

“In fifty years time, the Dead Sea will disappear,” said Adnan Zoubi, spokesman for the Jordanian water ministry, said.

“The canal project is the most important and feasible project to save the Dead Sea and will help solve Jordan’s water problems,” Khaldoun Khushman, secretary general of the Jordanian water ministry, said.

Since the Dead Sea is about 1,300 ft below the Red Sea, this could be a new way to generate power to run a desalination plant to create drinkable water. The whole project is going to cost £3 billion, Sweden and South Korea agreed to pay around 3 million £ to support the construction which is believed to benefit the Palestinians, Israelis and the Jordanians population.

Via – Telegraph