U.S. Water News Online
REHOVOT, Israel -- Studies on the relationship between the
rise and fall of
the Dead Sea in Israel and nearby groundwater levels have resulted
in
development of a computer model that can be applied to similar bodies
of
water in arid regions of the world. The model should prove to be
applicable
to other "closed-basin terminal lakes" such as the Great Salt Lake in
Utah
and Lake Magadi in Chad, say researchers at the Weizmann Institute
of
Science.
The water level of the Dead Sea, which as the terminus of the
Jordan River is
the lowest lake in the world, has decreased an average of 0.5 meters
per year
since 1960. The response of groundwater level to changes in the Dead
Sea
level was found to be rapid, as immediate as a matter of days,
Weizmann
Institute researchers have determined. This finding, along with data
on the
structural and hydraulic properties of the aquifer, was used to
construct the
computer model.
"The methodology applied in the present research is shown to be
reliable for
analyzing the complex hydrogeological systems in the Dead Sea area,"
the
scientists concluded. "We suggest that such a methodology can be used
to
obtain significant understanding of a similar hydrogeological system,
on the
basis of very limited field observation and computing resources." The
model
takes into account a wide variety of factors, such as the distance
between
wells and the lake, the slope of the lake bottom, and density
differences
between seawater and groundwater.
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