1 A Future for the Dead Sea Basin: Options for a More

The Dead Sea Basin has been affected, like other areas in the Jordan River Basin, by the economic and demographic changes of the last 50 years. The water level of the Dead Sea has declined over 21 m from 1930 to 1997, to approximately 414m below sea level, and its surface area has shrunk by about 30 %. This paper presents the results to date from a European Commission FP5 project on integrated watershed management with an emphasis on transboundary waters. The project addresses the options for future sustainable development of the Dead Sea Basin through synthesizing the available data, analyzing the interactions between natural resources and human activities, and establishing strategic development plans. The underlying assumption of the research is that solutions for a more sustainable development than today scenario will not come from simply providing "more water for more development", but from a new land and water management system that is sensitive to social, cultural and ecological resources. The research includes both the physical and social dimensions, but rather than looking at these dimensions in parallel, the project actively seeks for an interdisciplinary approach in finding the common ground where these dimensions act and interact. This paper will focus on the development of a socioeconomic systems model that maps out the interactions among social, economic and demographic factors that impact water resources