The motorboat cut through the aquamarine water of the Dead Sea, past dazzling-white formations forged from salt crystals. Jake Ben Zaken, the boat captain, pointed to a patch of darker water nearby indicating a sinkhole beneath the seabed. These are both signs of an unfolding ecological disaster, he said.The Dead Sea sits where Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian land meet and is a place of extremes. It’s the lowest point on the planet, around 1,400 feet below sea level. It’s also one of the world’s saltiest water bodies, nearly 10 times saltier than the ocean, which makes the water so dense people can float effortlessly on its surface.But this unique body of water is dying. Every year it recedes around 4 feet, as the impacts of human activities and climate change take a heavy toll. Over the past five decades, its surface area has shrunk by roughly a third. As the water retreats, it’s forging a new landscape of sinkholes and salt-encrusted shorelines that is both strikingly beautiful and a haunting reminder that the Dead Sea’s future hangs in the balance.Jake Ben Zaken runs boat tours on the Dead Sea and has a front row seat to the rapid changes. – Laura Paddison/CNNBen Zaken, who runs the company Salty Landscapes from Mitzpe Shalem, a settlement in the West Bank, has been taking people out onto the Dead Sea …
