Yusuf Mansur

Can the dead be revived? No, but if we are speaking of the Dead Sea, it is possible, and with water, too!

How simple the cure is. The new-old initiative of connecting the Red Sea with the Dead Sea is the most important economic project for the sustainable development of the Kingdom in the long term.

The Dead Sea is two-thirds its size in the 1970s, in terms of water surface, and where it used to be 395 metres below sea level, it is now 417 metres, a 22-metre drop in 30 years; and the rate of loss is accelerating as population and unfair usage escalate. Thus, speeding up the untimely demise of one of the most important cultural and historical sights in the world, at the current rate, the Dead Sea will disappear by 2050.

The unfair uncoordinated usage of the resources that feed the sea is emblematic of the Tragedy of the Commons, a well-known concept in economics, where two or more parties share a common resource with no penalty or fee for usage. Consequently, since usage is costless, each party has an incentive to draw from the resource more than the others do.

When completed, the canal will mean more to Jordan than saving one of its greatest tourist attraction sites. It will bring with it power generation from the hydraulic stations on the canal, water desalination capabilities (Israel is considered the world leader in water desalination and currently uses nuclear energy for that purpose) and a renewable water source.

Agriculture will also blossom on both sides of the canal as irrigation water becomes available, instead of using the water of the Disi aquifer in the south of Jordan, thus wasting one of the cleanest water resources on a low-return product, and draining possibly the oldest aquifer in the world to plant watermelons for export to make Jordan, one of the ten water-poorest countries in the world, a de facto exporter of water.

Tourism and tourist projects will also pick up as the canal comes to provide unmatched scenery in a warm spot of the world. Aqaba will become even closer as buildings and structures will appear between the Dead Sea and Aqaba and the economic activity will see a population shift to the Jordan Valley, where Jordanians won’t have to worry about heating their homes with expensive fuel in the winter.

Thousands of skilled and semi-skilled jobs will be created. Billions of dollars of investment will accompany the canal in order to benefit from the opportunities it generates. The canal itself will be a tourist attraction and economic activity will grow into truly sustainable economic growth and development.

The cost of the project is not forbidding. It would be much easier for officials to ask for aid and grants to finance this project than had been the case when asking for finance for less sustainable and economically feasible projects. Besides, investors could pick up the tab for the capital outlays through a BOO (build, own, operate), BOT (build, operate, transfer), BOOT (build, own, operate, transfer), or any other financing scheme.

The sad fact remains that this project had been thought of in Jordan more than 30 years ago; but since there was no peace treaty between Jordan and Israel at the time, it was considered an embarrassing taboo. Jordan presented this project among its mega-investment projects at the MENA Economic Conference held in Amman in 1995. It remains there, in the literature. The cost of the study, estimated then as now at $15 million, is paltry relative to the losses associated with losing the Dead Sea every year. The simplest cost/benefit analysis will show the economic feasibility and the high economic return to Jordan and its neighbours from such a project.

Jordan should continue the drive to build the canal, reviving the Dead Sea before it is too late.

 Questions and comments can be directed at: ymansur@enconsult.com