At the southern end of the Dead Sea, where the ancient lake once stretched unbroken, the landscape has been transformed into one of the most surreal industrial operations on earth. Vast geometric evaporation pools — turquoise, emerald green, and rusty red — stretch across hundreds of square kilometers where the southern basin of the Dead Sea used to be. This is where Israel extracts potash, bromine, magnesium, and other minerals from the hypersaline waters, and where the collision between industry and nature has created both extraordinary wealth and an environmental crisis.
The Evaporation Pools
The southern basin of the Dead Sea has been entirely converted into artificial evaporation pools. Dead Sea water is pumped into the pools, where the intense desert sun evaporates the water and concentrates the minerals. The pools are dyed different colors to control the rate of evaporation — darker colors absorb more heat and evaporate faster — and the result is a patchwork of vivid rectangles that look more like abstract art than an industrial operation. Seen from the summit of Masada or from the road descending from Arad, the pools are one of the most visually striking things in Israel. From space, they are visible to the naked eye.
Hotels on the Pools
The resort hotels at Ein Bokek, where most tourists stay when visiting the Dead Sea on the Israeli side, are not built on the shore of the natural Dead Sea. They sit on the edge of the evaporation pools — the southern basin that was once part of the lake but has been given over entirely to mineral extraction. The water that guests float in is pumped pool water, maintained at the famous Dead Sea salinity. The natural, undivided Dead Sea lies further north, near Ein Gedi and Masada. The distinction between the natural lake and the industrial pools is one of the least-discussed facts of Dead Sea tourism.
The Minerals
Dead Sea Works (now ICL Dead Sea, part of Israel Chemicals Ltd.) is one of the largest producers of potash in the world. Potash is used primarily as agricultural fertilizer — the food that feeds the crops that feed billions of people depends partly on what is extracted from this ancient lake. The operation also produces bromine (used in flame retardants, pharmaceuticals, and water treatment), magnesium, and other industrial minerals. On the Jordanian side, the Arab Potash Company conducts similar operations. Together, the two countries’ extraction industries have accelerated the Dead Sea’s decline.
The Shrinking Sea
The Dead Sea is losing approximately one meter of water level per year. The diversion of over 90 percent of the Jordan River’s natural flow by Israel, Jordan, and Syria for agriculture and drinking water, combined with the mineral extraction operations, has caused the sea to shrink dramatically. The water level has dropped by more than 30 meters since the 1960s. Thousands of sinkholes have opened along the retreating shoreline, swallowing roads, buildings, and date palm groves as underground salt layers dissolve when the water table drops. The Ein Gedi area has been particularly hard hit. The future of the Dead Sea is one of the most significant environmental challenges in the Middle East.
Visit with Hoshen Tours
The evaporation pools are best seen from above — from the summit of Masada at sunrise, or from the road descending from Arad, where the entire southern basin spreads below in impossible colors. Hoshen Tours explains the extraction process, the environmental story, and the uncomfortable truth about where the hotel pools actually are, as part of Dead Sea itineraries.