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Egypt has managed to plant trees in the desert using wastewater
- danans 6y agoIt's not clear to me what the source of water is relative to the size of the forest, because IIUC, in dry regions like Egypt (and California, Israel, etc), unless you use drip-irrigation with targeted crops (which won't grow a forest), agriculture requires a huge amount of water compared to domestic water consumption, so the wastewater stream from the latter intuitively can't be nearly enough to support a forest. Perhaps they are drip irrigating the entire floor of the artificial forest to minimize evaporative losses? The paper linked in the article [1] doesn't really explain how they are doing this. EDIT: this article [2] explains the system in a bit more detail. For a sense of the scale of forest vs the wastewater supply, it's a city of 400K people whose wastewater is supporting a .78 square mile "forest". So it's really more like a large park. It's a great demonstration nonetheless, especially if it can be a productive source of food for the city. 1. http://www.fao.org/forestry/35800-094f4eedb0c86a4a33be1a3d906d80d3f.pdf http://www.fao.org/forestry/35800-094f4eedb0c86a4a33be1a3d90... 2. https://www.intelligentliving.co/egyptian-desert-forest-recycled-sewage-water/ https://www.intelligentliving.co/egyptian-desert-forest-recy...
- soperj 6y agoThat's the current forest that was started in 98. The one that they're starting now is 100 million hectares (1 million sq km).
- danans 6y agoThat is 380 times larger. Unless they are massively underutilizing the current wastewater stream, they need to multiply the irrigation water use efficiency that much, unless they think of forest is going to alter weather systems in such a way that brings rain to the area.
- vram22 6y ago> unless they think of forest is going to alter weather systems in such a way that brings rain to the area. I am not an expert, but based on books and articles I've read[1], forests tend to do that. I think you don't even need a large patch of forest for it to attract rain, anecdotally. [1] Get an old copy of The Forest and The Sea by Marston Bates, if you can. "In 1960, he published the ecological science book The Forest and the Sea, an introduction to how ecosystems work. He compares a rain forest and a tropical sea, their similarities and differences, and through it demonstrates how to understand biological systems." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marston_Bates https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marston_Bates Influential book, I believe.
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- MrSourz 6y agoSomething worth reading into are the Nile Water Treaties put into place under British rule of the area, which strongly favour Egypt. This has come up due to Ethiopia’s Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and the plans being made on how quickly to fill up its reservoir. I mention this as making forests in the desert is going to end up being a political issue and will likely be used in arguments over water rights in the region, even if its total draw is inconsequential.
- sudosysgen 6y agoThe Egyptian argument is likely going to be that the the forests will more than pay for they cost in water due to the lower albedo and induced rainfall, and will eventually become self-suficient as well as provide excess rainfall.
- farseer 6y agoIs there any man made forest on Earth that started to induce rainfall?
- baq 6y agothat's literally what rainforests do, after all.
- kungito 6y agoHave you got any English source for this?
- soperj 6y agoIt's in the linked article?
- 01100011 6y agoYour water needs might drop significantly once the forest is established. Depending on the trees, the established canopy might drop the evaporative losses dramatically.
- dalbasal 6y agoTrue, but I think the GP's danans overall point still stands. Household water consumption (and waste) just isn't that much. It takes a lot of households to support a pretty little forest. Maybe a mature canopy increases your efficiency by 50% or more, but you're still working with a pretty small volume of water.
- maerF0x0 6y agoalso there is a systemic effect. More forests means more rain. Under the current models we send most of the rainfall immediately back into rivers + oceans. By creating inland forests we get mini little "oceans" to evaporate and move water for a 2nd rainfall. Each cycle the plants + ground hold onto a little, but mostly it can be evaporated and re-rained again and again. Deserts have the issue that they have little to hold onto the water, and to reevaporate it for subsequent rainfalls.
- andai 6y agoMaybe they emulate a canopy with some kind of tarp while the trees are growing?
- PakG1 6y agoWouldn't a tarp get in the way of sunlight, stopping photosynthesis?
- classfigment 6y agoWe have a small 15m by 15m garden here in Kuwait (we have a similar climate to Egypt if not a little more hot). To keep planting all year long, we run a “protect from insects” fine mesh over the entire garden and it feels significantly cooler while still allowing sunlight through. Not scientific enough, but we never thought to check the temperature drop or the sunlight reduction. I may do that this summer just to see how much light is blocked.
- zepearl 6y ago> Perhaps they are drip irrigating the entire floor of the artificial forest to minimize evaporative losses? More or less (saw it on german TV a few weeks ago) - here ( https://www.planet-wissen.de/video-aegypten--ein-wald-mitten-in-der-wueste-100.html https://www.planet-wissen.de/video-aegypten--ein-wald-mitten... ), if you jump to 01:55 you'll see the small pipes that distribute the water, but it's a bit more than just "drip irrigation" (at 02:34 it's visible that it's more than just a few drops).
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- panny 6y agoThe point is to get rid of the wastewater safe/cheap/efficient rather than grow the forest. Water consumption isn't the concern. They certainly wouldn't be doing drip irrigation with wastewater because wastewater would clog the equipment. Evaporation is expected and desired. Treated human waste is full of pharmaceuticals and phosphates from detergents. It should not be used to grow food unless it is feed for animals. Drainage is a concern on sandy soil. You wouldn't want these sites anywhere near your groundwater supply. You can't dump phosphates and nitrogen in your rivers because the result is algal blooms -> depleted oxygen -> fish kills and really toxic shit like Pfiesteria, which can give you headaches, cognitive problems, and nerve damage just from standing knee deep in the water. Really, how well the forest grows is beside the point. They're doing this to dispose waste water. If they can make a tree crop to offset costs a bit, then great. The "climate change" angle is lipstick on the pig.
- krageon 6y ago> It should not be used to grow food unless it is feed for animals If the potential toxins on the crop are the concern, these animals can also then not be for human consumption (directly or indirectly). In a lot of cases they probably can't even produce things for human consumption. There's not a whole lot of use left once you eliminate those use cases.
- panny 6y agoIt depends on what is in your wastewater of course, but most toxin typically concentrates in the leaves rather than the beans/corn. From there, the toxin remaining concentrates mostly in organs which can be discarded, rather than the meat. Each step in the food chain acts as a filter. You do not want to consume the crop directly and have buildup in your organs. Also, eating food irrigated with waste sludge is a great way to catch e-coli. Treated waste is aerated and anaerobic pathogens like that largely neutralized, but it could still happen. If a hog is sick/dies, it's not as big a deal as a human.
- krageon 6y agoSteps in the food chain are concentrators for toxins, not filters. Discarding organ meat isn't a given, though I suppose throwing away the liver in a lot of cases would be a solution. It seems like it is a risky play for relatively little gain, but I'm not a food regulator.
- bumblebritches5 6y ago.78 square miles isn't even large, that's a small park.
- farseer 6y agoLess than 500 acres planted using sewege water from cities. The rest (planting millions of acres of forest) is just a wishlist and the article is short on details.
- jacurtis 6y agoTo be fair, it was a proof of concept to see if it was possible. They did prove that it is possible. The rest of the details probably haven't been sorted out yet for how they plan to scale it. A terraforming project can easily take many decades or even a century to complete. So I think it is encouraging to see them starting and/or attempting this to benefit the generations to come.
- nicoffeine 6y agoIsrael already gets the majority of its water, including for irrigation, from desalination.[1] They achieve this through a combination of conserving and recycling water as well as very targeted irrigation of crops, along with new technology such as the Sorek desal plant. The second generation may be up and running by 2023 [2]. There's an interesting paper [3] about building 40,000 Sorek style plants to sequester excess water in arid areas and avoid problems with sea level rise. Without any savings at scale, this would be around 20 trillion dollars, but that's clearly cheaper than building infrastructure to protect coasts around the world, with the side benefit of creating jobs and food in areas that are in the most need. I've been working (in the script-writing sense) on a narrative around EarthStations -- molten salt solar towers powering desal plants and green tech manufacturing, surrounded by highly efficient farms, and further out in the ring, forests that eat the desert. Since they are located on coasts, all the infrastructure can be delivered by ships, and all the goods created easily shipped out once they are up and running. One big technical problem is what to do with the brine -- I'm not sure how much could go into molten salt heat storage. But they could serve as an engine to keep sea levels stable. This is a longwinded way of saying I think the project in Egypt is a good example of the terraforming we need to be doing instead of dreaming about for a planet like Mars. Even though it is small scale, turning deserts into forests is pretty impressive, and something we need to do learn how to do well to fight climate change. [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/israel-proves-the-desalination-era-is-here/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/israel-proves-the... [2] https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-ide-wins-sorek-2-desalination-tender-after-us-pressure-1001330178 https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-ide-wins-sorek-2-desalina... [3] https://f1000research.com/articles/5-889 https://f1000research.com/articles/5-889
- mrfusion 6y agoMy idea would be to flood lower than sea level deserts with ocean water and then start a mangrove forest. (They thrive in salt water) Of course the evaporation might raise the salinity above what they could handle. Perhaps a monthly flush out somehow?
- sooper 6y agoIt has been proposed in the past - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara_Sea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara_Sea.
- josefx 6y agoWasn't there even a plan that involved using up the nuclear stockpile to 'dig' a channel and drain the Mediterranean Sea? Of course there might be some opposition to that currently.
- el_oni 6y agoindeed, project plowshare. Which came from the Atoms for Peace idea
- elmolino89 6y agoIn Egypt you already have long stretches of the Indian Ocean coast without mangrove or any other vegetation. But the problem with mangroves is that these grow more or less in a belt between tropics (~ <= 25degs latitudes), require some rainfall and salinity not exceeding some limits. I am not aware of any patch of mangroves on the mediterranean coast. Last but not least, these trees are adopted to tides or estuaries with lower salinity. You will not reproduce such conditions in an oversized saharan Dead Sea. See also: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/3/646/htm https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/3/646/htm
- 0ne-nine9 6y agoArchitecture has had a moment where it was proposing green rooftops and nature-integrations for large developments. Where did that disappear to? There aren't even any recent nominations of projects which beautifully and functionally integrate green spaces into their construction.
- mrfusion 6y agoThis says the humidity of the Sahara desert is 25%. I wonder if you could devise some kind of system to collect water from the air? (Taking advantage of the big difference in day and night temperatures) https://saharadesertinfo.weebly.com/humidity.html https://saharadesertinfo.weebly.com/humidity.html
- mattkrause 6y agoGonna need some Freman to operate it....
- mmanfrin 6y agoThe Appendix of Dune is what solidified it as one of the best books I've ever read. I remember him going in to detail about how the planet had a type of desert flower that would grow at the bottom of dunes that acted as a catch for the morning dew, concentrating it and preventing it from evaporating away and thereby making pockets of water for the local animals.
- azeirah 6y agoI recall from a documentary I viewed that dew drops form on the ends of cactus needles, which is a large part of how they get enough water.
- iancmceachern 6y agohttps://us.watergen.com/ https://us.watergen.com/
- mackatsol 6y agoSounds like they need a little Permaculture… https://www.permaculturenews.org/2009/12/11/greening-the-desert-ii-final/ https://www.permaculturenews.org/2009/12/11/greening-the-des... The video above is a followup (6 years later) to greening a section of the desert in 2003.
- vram22 6y agoMore like a lot, but the right idea ...
- Kuinox 6y agoPermaculture don't work with modern tools, it works well in your garden, but require so much labor that you are economically doomed at scale.
- Retric 6y agoThat true for now, but building better tools solves a great many problems.
- Kuinox 6y agoYeah, we need sort of drones smart enough so they can pick up the food themself. With this technology most of the permaculture ideas (protecting plants with other plants) can be replaced with drones.
- triyambakam 6y agoYou haven't heard of Sepp Holzer apparently
- Kuinox 6y agoI have heard a lot of things on this subject. But I never seen a good article saying it's good. Every article I seen saying it's good only use buzzwords, few numbers, but never tell real life numbers, like how many people worked there, how many they produced, how much they sold it, etc...
- ignoramous 6y agoSeed Balls Kenya is another reforestation initiative that looks impressive. They recycle charcoal dust to not only form a protective shell around seeds embed within it but also provide necessary nutrition when those are planted in degenerate areas. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44044267 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44044267 http://www.seedballskenya.com/ http://www.seedballskenya.com/
- Pfhreak 6y agoI really love this idea. There's a part of me that wants to take this idea of biochar seedballs to support reforestation elsewhere. I live in the PNW, and it would be really interesting to see what it would take to convert lumber scrap/timber waste into biochar/syngas, produce energy from the syngas, and use the biochar to support planting trees (and possibly sequester some of it as well.)
- foxhop 6y agoI have a solid method of producing biochar without any infra at a small scale. I'd be willing to do the lab and field work if somebody wants to help build experiments and test theories. So far I don't see any negatives to where I have applied biochar. The positives could be anything but my guess is the trial needs to be long term. Hit me up on YouTube or my contact page on my blog (link in my profile). YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/RussellBallestrini https://www.youtube.com/c/RussellBallestrini TL;DR lets test ideas on growing food together, subscribe if you are into this stuff.
- nitrogen 6y agoHave you seen Cody's Lab's "Will it Charcoal" series, also on YouTube? Might be interesting to compare your approach: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKhDkilF5o68NFFy5p5nMVZyWSiTbsMJK https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKhDkilF5o68NFFy5p5nM... Anyway, gave you a sub and liked the video on fresh salsa. Home grown salsa is incomparable to any other.
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- hansjorg 6y agoAnother article, from Deutsche Welle, with some pictures: https://www.dw.com/en/sewage-effluent-fights-desertification-in-egypt/a-19318165 https://www.dw.com/en/sewage-effluent-fights-desertification...
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- headmelted 6y agoIs this a good thing? I mean it’s certainly interesting but as others have pointed out the desert is a natural ecosystem and it makes a lot more sense to reforest areas of previous growth than doing this. That’s not really my problem with it though. Surely from a climate change perspective this is really just introducing a fairly large carbon sink that will eventually release the carbon in short order if the irrigation stops or political will blows in a different direction? We’re way beyond the point of just planting more trees to combat climate change, although we definitely need to do that too, we need a plan to sequester greenhouse gases permanently, and I’m not sure this does that.
- nextaccountic 6y agoYes, it is. The Sahara was green some 15000 years ago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_humid_period https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_humid_period
- headmelted 6y agoThat’s exactly my point though. From the link: “Even if humans stop emitting greenhouse gases today, these gases would still be elevated by the year 12000.” Creating a temporary carbon sink in the form of a desert forest helps in the short term, but is not negative carbon. It’s net carbon neutral. Genuinely being “green” in this instance requires sequestration of the existing gas from the atmosphere.
- Maursault 6y agoYeah, and it will be again in 10,000 years, but as per the wiki you site, this is due to Earth's orbital period [1], and it doesn't last very long. And during Green Sahara (if our species is still around to see it) we're likely to see deserts where we now have green. [1] https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/green-sahara-african-humid-periods-paced-by-82884405/ https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/green-saha...
- jzer0cool 6y ago> 100 million hectares (1 million sq km). How much water needs to be channeled to simply maintain the current size (demand as the current trees grow)? Is there some metrics of water needed per acre?
- 15243user 6y agocheckout the actual forest in Google Maps[1]. If you check the historical imagery in Google Earth Pro, you'll see that sometimes between the end of 2017 and the start of 2018 most of the trees kinda disappeared. I dunno if the forest was cut down or if they just stopped watering it, but its pretty much gone now [1] https://goo.gl/maps/7mtZYS1v5588fdeYA https://goo.gl/maps/7mtZYS1v5588fdeYA
- olejorgenb 6y agoIf anyone else wonders what those green circles are (when you zoom out just a bit more: https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/comments/453pj2/what_are_all_these_circles_in_egypt_on_google_maps/ https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/comments/453pj2/wha... (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_pivot_irrigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_pivot_irrigation)
- htnsao 6y agoThere's a better way to do it.. Trees can be planted in deserts without irrigation using technology developed by a Dutch company called Groasis [0]. They have also recently come up with a new version of their Waterboxx that can use any kind of wastewater to plant trees, even sea water. [1] Looks like it works via solar condensation which then wicks into the soil so the roots can follow it down to the deeper capillary water ~3 meters below. So no need for drip irrigation. This new water filter box will come in handy for ongoing restoration projects in the Galapagos Islands etc where fresh water is unavailable. Will make a post for it when more information becomes available. [0] https://www.groasis.com https://www.groasis.com [1] https://youtu.be/dcSnF_AoqgY https://youtu.be/dcSnF_AoqgY
- nashashmi 6y agoNot sure if this way is better. After some in-depth searching, I find the key piece in this solution is a "wick", a capillary rising water tube that takes water (of any quality) and feeds it into the ground.
- htnsao 6y agoYou missed the part about only needing to fill it once.
- jackmoore 6y agoI don't follow this
- dmos62 6y agoHere's an interesting case study about a plantation in a dry ski resort. It has more info, which is otherwise a bit hard to find: https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL5MDcgMmY2CXV3x-v0KCjMd1ZhglmS3tW&v=Zt2GDdvFYY4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL5MDcgMmY2CXV3x-v0KCjMd1... Notice, that it's a playlist with a bunch of these case studies. The device displayed in the video (the company makes a few different ones) didn't require watering at all, because it collects dew. It's also biodegradable, so there isn't a cleanup cost. They also provide physical protection for the sapplings, which can be important. It seems to add up to very high survival rate in tough environments. Edit: here's a brochure explaining the technology: https://issuu.com/groasis/docs/brochure_eng_2 https://issuu.com/groasis/docs/brochure_eng_2
- acvny 6y agoHere's a short video explaining how it works: https://youtu.be/EOSFKGay5Hg https://youtu.be/EOSFKGay5Hg
- johntfella 6y agoDoes anyone know the specific tree species planted? I'm working on a project with boswellia species so this is where my curiosity is coming from.
- da39a3ee 6y agoThey are listed here: http://www.fao.org/forestry/35800-094f4eedb0c86a4a33be1a3d906d80d3f.pdf http://www.fao.org/forestry/35800-094f4eedb0c86a4a33be1a3d90... Wikipedia indicates that the following are from Australasia and South Asia and therefore are non-native and must have extremely limited conservation value in north Africa: Casuarina equisetifolia, Dalbergia sissoo, Eucalyptus camaldulensis, Eucalyptus citriodora, Terminalia arjuna The following are Mediterranean or Sub-saharan African: Cupressus sempervirens, Khaya grandifoliola, Khaya senegalensis, Pinus halepensis I am very concerned that climate change is creating a generation that does not understand the value of natural habitat with native plant species. Many people nowadays seems to just care about climate change and not about species conservation.
- johntfella 6y agoThanks. I agree. Boswellia is native to the region. There is a planting project going on in Yemen for specific species but the fighting has complicated the project. A lot is hitting the species and is likely to increase in demand. NYT piece covers some of the challenges its facing: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/05/science/frankincense-trees-collapse.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/05/science/frankincense-tree...
- dalbasal 6y agoAnyone know what they're planting?
- justicezyx 6y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-North_Shelter_Forest_Program https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-North_Shelter_Forest_P... China had something similar but results were mixed
- vaccinator 6y agoCalifornia grows water intensive crops like almonds and manages to make money even if they are running low on water
- dzhiurgis 6y agoLooking at earth timelapse the whole area has been expanding for a while https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse#v=30.46781,31.89686,9.116,latLng&t=3.4&ps=50&bt=19840101&et=20181231&startDwell=0&endDwell=0 https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse#v=30.46781,31.89686...
- andai 6y agoThe UN's Forestry Department has a fact sheet here (pdf) with some annotated satellite pics showing the layout and species. http://www.fao.org/forestry/35800-094f4eedb0c86a4a33be1a3d906d80d3f.pdf http://www.fao.org/forestry/35800-094f4eedb0c86a4a33be1a3d90...
- alex_duf 6y agoThanks, I was trying to spot it from satellite pictures and it doesn't quite seem to match the ambitious videos that are on the https://www.greatgreenwall.org/ https://www.greatgreenwall.org/ website I really like the idea though, I hope it goes through
- aaron695 6y agoCentral Park New York is 341 h, The Empire State Building has 25 ha This project is 200 ha That is 1.4km by 1.4km. Not a small farm, not a large farm. If it was real, obviously the Serapium Forest doesn't really exist outside of fantasy. As you can see from the map.
- stevespang 6y agoThere is a big difference between merely planting trees in the desert and having them survive years later . . . just ask the Chinese
- da39a3ee 6y agoClimate change is making people forget what a forest is. A forest is not a large collection of trees. It is an ecosystem. I know that not all climate-change related programs make this mistake, but overall, the rush to do good things to combat climate change is coming at the expense of people forgetting that if we fail to prevent extinctions today due to natural habitat loss, then no amount of reduced climate change due to non-native species reforestation projects in the future will ever bring them back. The greatest threat facing the natural world is not climate change, it is habitat loss.
- eucryphia 6y agoWhy waste taxpayers cash on that when the CO2 fertilisation effect will expand vegetation cover anyway? Vegetation grows faster and uses less water.
- ant6n 6y agoEver hear of something called desertification?
- sclangdon 6y agoHere is a good video tour of a similar thing in Jordan by premier Permaculture instructor Geoff Lawton. https://youtu.be/6fj0oeyREeM https://youtu.be/6fj0oeyREeM
- castiog 6y agoShame they haven't discovered the bin yet. They could stop filling the streets with plastic bottles so they don't end up in the sea.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]