From Worldchanging we get news of an attempt to refill the shrinking Dead Sea by piping water in from the neighboring Red Sea.

The Dead Sea is unique. More salty than the oceans, it's now technically a lake, like none other in the world.

But it has shrunk by a third in the last 30 years. Nearly 100% of the Jordan -- virtually its only tributary -- has been diverted for agriculture.

Excessive mineral mining for potash and magnesium chloride is removing water at a rate of 150 million cubic meters per year. Now water levels are dropping a meter per year.

Dramatic engineering may be necessary in order to resuscitate the Dead Sea.  One idea that has been floated recently is to refill it with water from the neighboring Red Sea -- at a cost of $15 billion. A project of this scale is not without precedent, especially as water demand grows rapidly in many regions of the world. Egypt planned a similar water transfer project at a cost of $11 billion. Another example of this kind of desperate engineering is the $60 billion Chinese water transfer.

Withdrawals like this have increased at twice the rate of population growth, per the UN. The chief cause of the need for projects similar to this is the increase in desertification. Desertification has doubled worldwide within the last 30 years.

The possible untoward results of combining these seas include new algae growth that would also change the buoyancy of the water and alter its blue water to appear reddish. But the strangest comes from the mineral makeup of the two bodies of water: Because the Dead Sea is rich in calcium and the Red Sea is rich in sulfate: if we mix them together we could create a strange new sea covered by a surface layer of gypsum.

Photo by Flickr user ccarlstead