Desert reclamation/terraforming
- Thread starter rewster
- Start date
Changes happen. People have to learn to deal with it. It is also said that changing pollution in Europe was partly responsible for droughts in North Africa in the 1980s. What counts is only the net results (even if calculated purely in social terms - lifes, quality of living...) - and those should be positive.
Don't let yourself get bogged down by negativity. Perhaps topics have been aired before but the idea is to get a new angle or perspective. Quite a number of times it happens on this site. So go on.
Another possibility is really slow, but then perhaps not. In the coastal areas put up nets to catch humidity in the early moring hours. Then plant the area close to the nets, when the plants cacth on put up more nets and so on, until the plants spread by themselves. It have been proven to work on a small scale, just needs somebody to do it on a grand scale. Problem is it takes time and is low-cost...
Nothing really spectacular about it...
Nothing really spectacular about it...
Withoil energy prices steeply rising in Europe, and with some of the worlds largest green energy technology companies bein based in the EU, particulary Germany, do you think it would be possible that vast wind and solar parks are build in in Morroco, western Sahara, and Algeria to meet Europe's demand of green energy? Morroco (despite the ongoing dispute over western Sahara) and Algeria seem more stable in the long term than Russia or the nations of the middle east, and they are geographically close and economically closely linked to the EU. Those nations would also greatly benefit if they get a fair share out of the energy and possibly hydrogene production. Of course, technical problems of long distance energy transfer still have to be solved...
While the Sahara as a whole is not below Sea level there are thousands of depressions that are,
Take several dozens of boring machine and start a project to connect these depressions, After this is well under way, take several more and start tunnels from that Giant Depression on the Libya/Egyptian Border and the one in Tunisia towards the Med Coast.
The Boring Machines reach the Med, Water pours into the Depressions and from there on into others. Twenty years later you have a series of lakes thru out the Sahara,
Evaporation leads to rains, and streams, irrigating the Sahara
Take several dozens of boring machine and start a project to connect these depressions, After this is well under way, take several more and start tunnels from that Giant Depression on the Libya/Egyptian Border and the one in Tunisia towards the Med Coast.
The Boring Machines reach the Med, Water pours into the Depressions and from there on into others. Twenty years later you have a series of lakes thru out the Sahara,
Evaporation leads to rains, and streams, irrigating the Sahara
DuQuense
While there are a couple of regions below sea level near the coast, at Quatta and in central Tunisia they are both fairly small - compared to the size of the desert as a whole. Flooding them would help locally but not make a major impact. I don't think there are any other areas of any size below sea level.
I hope those boring machines are automated as once they reach the Med they get flooded.
Steve
PS Thinking that one side effect of this is it might mitigate sea level rises a little. Reminded me of one thing I have thought of before. A canal between the Black and Caspian Seas. That would potentially generate a lot of power and affect a much larger area. Both in terms of water 'consumed' and the moderating effects on that region of EuroAsia.
pacifichistorian
Banned
Why not use power relay satellites? Picture comsats, but at much higher power levels, in a network in geosynch orbit. It'd enable transmission of power with no wire at all. It'd also enable delivery of power anywhere in the world to anywhere else, so places like Central Africa or Central Asia that need it could get it from North or South America, Oz, Europe, wherever, when their local loads go down (between midnight & 6AM), whch improves efficiency in those powerplants (they'd now run at full power all the time), which reduces costs (& also adds to their profits, which should bring everybody's rates down {in theory...}). If Africa could get power this way (just build the receiver aerial), there'd be no need to import oil, or deforest areas for firewood, or use dung for fuel instead of leaving it for fertilizer; even small amounts in some places would have big knock-on effects. It'd also enable Africa, Central Asia, wherever to generate & sell power to Europe/North America they'd never be able to now. It'd also wipe out blackouts like we've seen, since transferring power place to place instantly would be dead easy.
this was suggested in the 1970s by Gerard K O'Neill, who envisioned them being produced by a lunar colony. These satellites would, according to his research, reduce power costs to less than 1 cent. the microwave beams have been theorized to help calm down hurricanes and the like, adding another benefit. the efficiency of these beams in the lab at the time he wrote about it (1976), was about 54%.
Okay, I remember too, in one of the Star Trek novels one of the characters (Kirk?) wondered whether the Mediterranean Alliance (a polity mentioned in no other Star Trek film or novel) had done the right thing, draining the Med basin to create more arable farmland (he missed the sea). Presumably, in the 23rd century, Earth will have many more mouths to feed. You guys are going to hate this, I'm so sorry, but I don't remember the name of this novel, nor its author. Seems like it might have been "Star Trek: the Motion Picture", not the best of the Star Trek movies, but the novel was a bit better.
Well ideas to flood the Sahara have been around for a long time. The most famous idea was proposed by Ferdinand de Lesseps in the 1800s.
http://books.google.com/books?id=mL...CE5NgK&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result
http://books.google.com/books?id=mL...CE5NgK&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result
Perhaps avoiding the First and Second World War, so that the northern Sahara is owned by much wealthier than OTL European powers who consider it an integral part of the motherland rather than a colony, so they are more willing to do the substantial investement required. Then, having France and Italy (and maybe the UK, via their Egyptian client), get into a pissing contest on the matter, and voila, desert terraforming,
in one of Kim Stanley Robinson's books (the trilogy about global warming), the basins of the Sahara are used to make huge seas, as a way to partially counteract the problem of rising sea levels.
One problem with 'greening' the Sahara (or any other desert)... these marginal areas tend to have soil with a lot of alkali or salt; put too much water on them, and those minerals start rising to the surface, and that puts an end to your growing anything. This has happened in several places in the American west. You can add small amounts of water to encourage the growth of grass and brush, but you want to avoid using heavy agricultural levels of water...
One problem with 'greening' the Sahara (or any other desert)... these marginal areas tend to have soil with a lot of alkali or salt; put too much water on them, and those minerals start rising to the surface, and that puts an end to your growing anything. This has happened in several places in the American west. You can add small amounts of water to encourage the growth of grass and brush, but you want to avoid using heavy agricultural levels of water...
the_lyniezian
Banned
I recall a BBC documentary on china where these people dug tunnels through the desert to bring water (possibly from the mountains, not sure) to the area where they lived, using it for growing grapes for wine or something.
And all without the aid of modern technology!
And all without the aid of modern technology!
There are other ways to avoid soil salinization, IIRC. In the Sahara though, wouldn't the greater problem be the lack of non-brackish, flowing water, rather than simply irrigation itself? Unlike other areas, the Sahara (rocky or sandy) wouldn't have the problem of a high water table leaching salts into the topsoil, or nasty after-effects of clearing extensive groundcover, like in semi-arid praries/steppe/plains.
one further problem with the Sahara are those rocky/sandy areas... is there any actual soil there? Can you get any real plant growth in pure sand, even with enough water?
The problem with salt leeching isn't so much high water tables (the American west doesn't have a lot of that), it's too much water being put on higher elevations, the water moving through the soil to lower elevations, and then naturally working it's way up, bringing the salt/alkali with it. You can avoid that by not watering heavy on higher elevations, but even with the best use, you still want to avoid heavy irrigation of marginal regions... you can make them grow native grass and brush and be less arid, but they will never be real agricultural heavyweights...
Valdemar II
Banned
Yes hardy plants move in and as the die and rot, slowly a layer of soil is created where less hardy plant can grow. It take less than ten years for this to happen, but the soil will have a poor quality for decades or centuries unless active fertilising is used. Cattle is good for that but sheeps and goat should be avoided, for their tendens to overgrass, even if they are better able to survive.