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Why the Dead Sea is shrinking

The Dead Sea drops more than a metre a year and has lost a third of its surface. What drains it, why sinkholes open and what it means for visitors.

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6 min read

High view of the turquoise water of the Dead Sea surrounded by desert mountains
Photo by Craig Vodnik on Unsplash

The Dead Sea is shrinking because it loses far more water than it gets. The Jordan River, which used to feed it, was diverted over the 20th century to supply towns and farms in Israel, Syria and Jordan. At the same time, mineral companies on both shores pump seawater into evaporation ponds. The result is a surface that drops by more than a metre every year.

This isn’t a small or recent change. Since 1960 the Dead Sea has fallen more than 37 metres and lost over a third of its surface area, according to EcoPeace Middle East, a group of Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian environmentalists. In 2025 the surface sat roughly 440 metres below sea level, and it’s still going down.

A lake that only lives on inflow

The Dead Sea sits at the bottom of a closed basin: water flows in but never flows out. It leaves only by evaporation, and in the heat of the Jordan Valley it evaporates fast. While the Jordan ran full, what arrived from the river and springs made up for much of what evaporated.

That balance broke when the inflow shrank. EcoPeace attributes the diversion of the lower Jordan and its tributaries half to Israel and half to Syria and Jordan. The US Geological Survey puts it plainly: in a closed basin, diverted water isn’t quickly replaced, so the level keeps dropping. A researcher at the Dead Sea-Arava Science Center, speaking to the Times of Israel in 2021, put the annual deficit at around one billion cubic metres.

The part that becomes salt and potash

The second cause is in the south. The Dead Sea used to have two basins joined by a strait. As the level fell, the strait dried up, and the southern basin turned into what is effectively a set of industrial evaporation ponds.

Dead Sea Works operates on the Israeli side and the Arab Potash Company on the Jordanian side. They pump water from the northern basin into the ponds, let the sun evaporate it and harvest the salts left behind, including the potash used in fertiliser. EcoPeace estimates this accounts for 30 to 40 percent of the Dead Sea’s water loss.

The sinkholes eating the shore

What visitors notice most isn’t the water but the ground. As the sea retreats, it leaves layers of salt buried under the old shoreline. Fresh water from rain and flash floods dissolves that salt from below, and the ground collapses without warning, leaving holes that can be more than ten metres deep.

There are now thousands of them along the Israeli, Jordanian and West Bank shores. They’ve swallowed stretches of road and tourist facilities, and most of the beach resorts on the western shore of the northern basin have had to close. The old Ein Gedi spa, built at the water’s edge, now sits about three kilometres from the sea, according to the Times of Israel.

Can it be saved?

The best-known fix was a pipeline of about 180 kilometres bringing water from the Red Sea at Aqaba, in Jordan. Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority signed an agreement in 2013, but the project’s abandonment was reported in June 2021. Scientists interviewed by the Times of Israel don’t expect the old level to return: the forecast is for at least another century of decline, until a smaller, saltier lake reaches a new balance.

The way I see it, this is one of the clearest cases of water decisions made far away redrawing an entire landscape. Nobody set out to drain the Dead Sea. It dried out because everyone around it needed the river.

Before you visit

  • Check the security situation first. Israel, Jordan and the West Bank are in a conflict region. Read your government’s travel advice before planning.
  • Take the fences seriously. Areas closed for sinkhole risk aren’t being cautious for show; the ground gives way without warning.
  • Swim where there are facilities. Beaches with lifeguards and freshwater showers are the safer choice. The water stings your eyes and any cut.
  • Expect a longer walk to the water. In many places the shoreline has moved, and the path from the road to the sea gets longer each year.
  • Keep your head above water. Float on your back, which the salt makes almost automatic.

The Dead Sea is still the lowest point on dry land on Earth. That point just keeps getting lower, and the shore you see today isn’t the one someone else saw ten years ago.

FAQ

How fast is the Dead Sea dropping?

By more than a metre a year, according to EcoPeace and the US Geological Survey, which cites a measurement of 1.2 metres a year.

Why is the Dead Sea drying up?

Mainly because of two things: diversion of the Jordan River and its tributaries for drinking water and irrigation, and industrial evaporation by mineral companies in the southern basin.

Will the Dead Sea disappear?

Scientists don’t expect it to vanish completely. The forecast is that it will keep shrinking until it reaches a balance, smaller and even saltier than today.

What are the Dead Sea sinkholes?

Collapses in the ground that form when fresh water dissolves salt left underground by the retreating shore. There are thousands, and they make some areas dangerous.

Sources

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