Story highlights The Dead Sea is shrinking, and humans are largely to blameIsrael and Jordan signed a $900 million deal to stabilize the popular salt lake(CNN) Something's happening at the lowest point on our planet, some 1,388 feet below sea level. The Dead Sea, a salt lake nestled by Israel, Jordan and the West Bank, is shrinking at an alarming rate -- about 3.3 feet per year, according to the environmentalist group EcoPeace Middle East . "It's not just like one country is punishing the Dead Sea; it's more like the whole region," said photographer Moritz Kustner, who visited the area in February to work on his series "The Dying Dead Sea." The Dead Sea needs water from the other natural sources surrounding it, such as the Jordan River basin. But around the 1960s, some of the water sources it relied upon were diverted.

Source: CNN November 20, 2016 23:28 UTC