Considering that I posted on this
five years ago and wrote to the subject long before, it is gratifying to see
progress today in a range of small private initiatives.
Combine that with the rapid
expansion of acacia culture in the Sahel itself and one can readily believe
that the reclamation of the Sahara is actually
beginning.
Yet put this in perspective. The Sahara is and never was a natural desert. I completely believe it was produced by human
agricultural practices during the Bronze Age.
A real long term desert has its own evolved ecosystem that makes it
quite unmistakable. North
Africa looks like a land wasted.
For that reason any and all
efforts to restore forests will easily payoff because as I have posted,
starting on the outside brings the moisture with you as you walk it in. Been greedy, I want to accelerate it all in
as many ways as possible. However,
simple best practice and a thousand years will also win.
One thing immediately suggested
from the pictures here is that it would be possible to plant wide forested fence
rows in a mile by mile grid over the whole desert needing a fraction of the
moisture a full forestration would call for.
This would sharply quell the winds at the surface and end the dust migration
while establishing refugia in the natural cells to individually optimize.
Set this on the southern margin
of the Sahara and I suspect plenty of farmers
will happily work up the cells into productive lands with a natural acacia
cover to work with.
Since we are building fence rows,
I would go the extra mile and establish thorn borders to discourage wild life
passing into the cells themselves. They
would be naturally channeled along the fence row itself and be nervous of open ground
in the cells.
Scarce water may often be
sufficient to support the fence rows them selves since it will represent less
than five percent of the total need.
As far as the article’s title question
is concerned, the forest absorbs energy and moderates surface climate. This will produce a warmer Europe and a
moderated Asia East of the Mediterranean .
And rather than giant greenhouse by
the sea, it is likely way more practical to plant mangrove marshes on the coast
to produce the necessary humidity to harvest immediately downwind.
The Big Question: Can planting forests in deserts cool the planet?
Vishal MehraNov
12 2011
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Can planting forests in deserts cool the planet?
###
Desert forestThe tree cover would also bring more rain–about 700 to
1200 millimeters per year–and clouds, which help reflect the sun’s rays back
into space.
Why are we asking this now?
Converting the sandy stretches of desert to lush green forests sounds
weird. But this is what has been of late proposed so as to counter the huge
Carbon emission of the atmosphere. That too, in a scenario when deforestation
is happening in a large scale across the world. Scientists have come out with
an option of converting deserts like the Sahara
into forests by large scale plantation and effective watering techniques.
There is a large scale denudation of forest and for est resources. This
happens due to natural disasters as well as those by human intervention. Forest fire engulfs vast area of forests around the
world. Hence efforts should be made at a large scale to replace our lost
forests. With advancements in the science of molecular biology combined with
modern agricultural techniques, this goal is not far to achieve.
Is it really that serious?
Trees as we know are the renewable wealth of our ecosystem. The
importance of trees can be highlighted in many ways. Lot
of Co2 is emitted by way of human habitation and burning of fossil fuels. This
Co2 is replenished by forests trees through the process of photosynthesis
wherein they use up this CO2 and release O2 back into the atmosphere. Trees
offer a major resistance to erosion of soil through water and wind. When rain
falls on the thick forest foliage, the water infiltrates into the ground
through the leaves thus making seepage easy. Also trees provide good wind
barriers. Forest covers let in cool air in
summer and warm air in winter. Apart from the aesthetic pleasure they offer, trees
also act as a main factor in maintaining the temperature of the region.
What others are saying?
On planting the Sahara desert with trees, atmospheric scientist Richard
Anthes, president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research in Boulder , Colorado
opines that “the proposal is incredibly important and definitely worth taking
seriously and looking into further. The benefits could be enormous and go well
beyond carbon sequestration,"
Regarding the cost of afforestation of Sahara ,
the cost has been worked out to $2 trillion per year. The cost of $2 trillion
compares roughly with the cost of capturing the carbon emission of the
atmosphere. Leonard Ornstein, a cell biologist at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine
in New York
quips “Any solution to climate change has to be a multitrillion-dollar project,
the issue is what the payback is."He argues, “In several decades, the
forests could be sustainably harvested as a source of fuel for wood-burning
power plants, making them a nearly carbon-neutral energy source”.
The Developments
###
Project Sahara ForestThe project has a very sound basic principle and
all that fresh water can be easily used to maintain many ecosystems that would
be rich in both sunlight and moisture.
Project Sahara has been envisaged by
scientists as a very successful one. Taking into consideration the benefit of
turning the desert into farming spaces, the main one is feeding the growing
population of the world. The project sound very promising. The main source of
water is the sea, which is made usable using desalination plants. Studies show
that if the Sahara is to be planted with
trees, it would reduce the temperature of the desert by 80. It is also
estimated that a tree cover on the Sahara can
bring in precipitation of about 700-1200 mm/year apart from the benefits of
reflecting the sun’s rays back into the clouds by the forest cover.
Also if planted with trees, the forest in Sahara
alone would recycle 8 billion tons of Carbon/year which equals the total Carbon
emitted by human habitation. Trees like Eucalyptus, which are identified to be
heat tolerant are found to adapt well to the desert soil, if provided with
ample irrigation.
2. Researcher transforms desert into lush green garden
###3
Desert in lush green garden The idea started to excel with the first
figs starting to grow in just four months.
Researcher Geoff Lawton of Permaculture Research Institute has made an
achievement of sorts. He has converted a span of desert into a green farm
growing food trees, plants and mushrooms. Situated 2 Km from Dead
Sea , the land was made pliable by effective rain water harvesting
and methods of evaporation barriers.
3. Man Plants Forest
in Tengger Desert
###4
Tengger DesertIt is immensely difficult for a tree to survive in the Tengger Desert as its average annual rainfall is
about 100 millimeters.
Living amidst a forest of 10000 trees, Wang Daqing, a native of Mongolia , takes
pride in having converted around 3 Hectares of desert area into forest. The
area, which received a very meagre rainfall, was irrigated with water from a
well in the area. Through his hard work and his yearning to contribute to the
mother earth, Daqing’s work is worth emulating.
4. A solution to reverse Africa 's
growing deserts
###5
African desertGroasis, an ingenious passive 'water incubator' collects
dew drops, making reforestation in barren lands possible.
` Pieter Hoff, a Dutch inventor has come out with an idea of a
Waterboxx, which supplies water through passive drip irrigation system to the
trees root system. The dew formed in the night is channelized to the tree roots
through this system. This ‘water battery’ takes advantage of the differential
temperature of day and night of deserts to reach water to the trees.
4. The main hurdles
In a reforestation or afforestation process, there are major natural as
well as manmade hurdles. The main ones are:
a. Damage due to rodents and other grazing animals
b. Soil deficiencies
c. Extreme weather conditions
d. Poor tree stock
e. Inadequate site preparation
f. Presence of unwanted weeds.
What can be done?
A combination of huge greenhouses combined with concentrated solar
power would help us achieve the goal of tree planting in deserts. In the
greenhouses, the solar power to evaporate seawater and then pump the damp, cool
air through the greenhouse. There is a mass awakening in support of desert
afforestation programmes. For example the Hitachi group
of Companies, to celebrate their 100th anniversary organised desert
afforestation tours in association with an NGO at the Horqin desert in Inner Mongolia .
So everyone, rise and awake to this need of the hour and protect our
planet earth!
1 comment:
My Name is Gary Bonett I have developed a shade product that will allow the world to terraform any desolit land into lush land even if there is no spell checker... Love
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