In this episode, Unpacked Explainers distills the salty truth about the Dead Sea, starting with the shocker that it’s neither a sea nor is it dead. Yet.
The Dead Sea is one of the biggest tourist destinations in the region, but it’s been drying up for decades and losing water at a frightening rate.
And it’s our own fault. For the last century, the Dead Sea has been heavily mined, which has had a devastating knock-on effect not only on the lake and its shoreline but also on nearby freshwater sources. There are some plans to breathe life into the Dead Sea. Like so many things in the Middle East, though, no one can quite agree on getting them started and no one can quite agree on whether they’ll do more good than harm.
The one thing everyone agrees on is that it would be a disaster if the Dead Sea were allowed to die.