Lord Foster, the British architect, has been enlisted by the King of Jordan for his most grandiose project yet - a canal carved through the Sinai desert to rescue the Dead Sea from environmental disaster. He has already held talks with the governments of Israel and Jordan about a $3 billion (£1.57 billion) scheme to transfer water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea. His proposal is to carry sea water from the Gulf of Aqaba to replenish the Dead Sea, which has shrunk by a third over the past 50 years and faces total evaporation. At stake is the area’s delicate ecology and a tourist industry - that draws 100,000 Britons each year - centred on the sea’s mineral-rich waters and mud. A sequence of canals and pipelines would channel sea water down through the arid Arava valley in southern Israel and Jordan to the salt lake at the lowest point on earth, 415 metres below sea level. Action is urgently needed. Over the past 50 years the Dead Sea’s depth has fallen by 20 metres. The so-called ‘Red to Dead’ plan is to reverse this fall, which has been so dramatic that it […]