The lowest place on Earth is still sinking, and so is everything around it

The Dead Sea, located where Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian lands meet, is the lowest point on Earth, sitting 1,400 feet below sea level. Its water is incredibly dense, nearly 10 times saltier than the ocean, allowing people to effortlessly float. However, the sea is in a state of decline. Each year, the Dead Sea recedes by about 4 feet.

Over the past five decades, its surface area has reduced by roughly a third. This shrinkage leaves behind a landscape of salt-encrusted shorelines and sinkholes, posing risks to those who stand on them.

Technically, the Dead Sea is a lake, landlocked and fed mainly by the Jordan River. The Jordan River originates on the border between Syria and Lebanon, flows through the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel, and continues south, splitting between Israel, Jordan, and the occupied West Bank. The shrinking of the Jordan River, due to damming and diversion by Israel, Syria, and Jordan, has led to a severe drop in water flow to the Dead Sea, plummeting from 1.3 billion cubic meters to just 100 million cubic meters.

The decline of the Dead Sea is also driven by mineral extraction. In the late 1970s, the sea split into two basins: a natural northern basin and an artificially maintained southern basin with industrial evaporation pools. Companies extract minerals from the northern basin, extracting water from the northern basin and losing water to the southern pools. Climate change exacerbates the situation, making the sea shrink even without human intervention, and the combined pressures threaten the future of the Dead Sea.