Study: Water wars likely in Middle East

LONDON, Dec. 7 (UPI) -- Using water from the Dead Sea means it's drying up, a resource loss that scientists said could destabilize an already tense Middle East political situation.

Sediment cores from below the Dead Sea indicate it dried up roughly 125,000 years ago and scientists say human activity might dry it up again.

"The Dead Sea is already drying up because humans are using so much water," Steven Goldstein, a geochemist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York, told London newspaper The Independent. "As of now, virtually no fresh water is entering the Dead Sea."

Scientists like Goldstein said the more the regional agricultural sector relies on water from the Dead Sea, the greater the chances for a prolonged drought.

This could create political conflicts between Israel and littoral states to the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee.

"There are political implications of this big drying down because water is what causes wars," Emi Ito of the University of Minnesota was quoted as saying.