Is it possible to turn desert into forest

Project implementation What are mycorrizhae? Saplings and seedlings Year round planting Micro climate effects Protecting crops against animals. Start to plant How to cut the roots? Make planting material How to grow vegetables Plant on mountains Plant in dry areas Plant under extreme conditions Plant big and mature trees Start a reforestation project Start an ecosystem restoration project After removing the Waterboxx.

The benefits of Groasis Solving the food problem Solving social problems Avoid natural disasters Back to the countryside Higher concentration nutrients. Various revenue models Forestry Fuelwood Biofuel.

Calculate the project costs Use the capillary drill. Downloads for press Press releases Download presskit. Work with Groasis Become a reseller Become a licensed producer. Can we turn deserts into forests? The areas on the world that once had trees All the yellow, orange and red areas were covered with healthy forests 2, years ago.

How to restore deserts into fertile land In many countries, desert reforestation efforts often occur with expensive and capital-intensive methods. Their method consists of various steps: With a pick axe, make a hole 60 x 40 x 40 cm; Now they plant a very small Pinus nigra tree in it so as to have as little evaporation as possible.

After planting, they add 15 liters of water. This water partly restores the capillary soil structure; and as the loose soil forms together, a pot-hole develops. This pot-hole is used several times to give water until the tree is able to survive. But it works! With this method, a field of small pine trees develops, and after some years, they grow well; The same method is repeated with Eucalyptus although I prefer to use local trees from the natural habitat ; View images of how trees are planted in the Sahara desert in Morocco.

Look at the erosion caused by strong winds; First, palm leaves are being cut in squares of 8 x 8 meters, and made into fences; Tamarix branches are put in the soil; around 30 liters of water is added on them; and then the stem is covered completely with loose sand.

After a while, a part of the stems starts to develop growing. Here you see some examples; Of course, not all Tamarix develops well. View the images of how walking dunes are planted in the Sahara desert in Morocco. By turning deserts into forests, at least partially, we can help slow down the process of climate change, among many other things. Desert greening does not only refer to the process of turning hot, sandy deserts green; it also deals with colder semi-arid deserts. By doing this, mankind can reclaim many of its natural water systems and support life.

Currently, desert greening is being performed on more than 30 million square kilometers of land, and it can help humanity with plenty of issues, such as energy, food, and water crises. Desert greening is highly dependent on the availability of water. If plenty of water is available, it is possible to turn deserts green. There are numerous ways we are able to get water to aid us during this process, mostly through rainwater harvesting, desalination, saving and reuse, and by using seawater directly.

Each one of these methods has its pros and cons, but almost all of them are used regularly. There are also other methods, such as the usage of solar stills that generate freshwater. This method is used by the Sahara Forest Project, which is a project to provide water, food, and energy to desert regions.

Adjacent Mongolia, too, just announced a plan to plant one billion trees by to combat desertification. Temperatures there are rising 1. Governments, locals, activists and engineers hope to restore million hectares of degraded land by and bring drought relief to some of the poorest regions in the world. The United Nations declared ecosystem restoration a priority and hopes to restore million hectares in 70 nations by The logic: It was humans who caused the loss of roughly 50 percent of biomass over the last 50 years, and accelerated desertification by grubbing and overgrazing once fertile land.

This human activity set into motion a vicious cycle of erosion, desiccation and desertification. The plot: Humans caused desertification, and humans can also reverse it. An experienced large-scale dredger, Van der Hoeven was originally asked only for advice on how to dredge the Sinai lagoon, which the Egyptian government believes would boost its fish stock.

But the longer he studied its geological makeup, the more intrigued he became. Could the 1. When he saw the documentary Green Gold by the journalist and environmentalist John Liu about the transformation of the Loess Plateau into a green oasis, he was hooked. He got to work mapping out the steps to regenerate the ecosystem of the Sinai. The Sinai region is one of the most hostile and barren on earth.

But just like the Loess Plateau, it was probably fertile as recently as 5, to 8, years ago. Cave paintings show trees and plants. He mapped out restoration in five steps. Steps One and Two: revitalize the lagoon and expand the wetlands around it.

Step Four: fog nets capture freshwater condensation on the nearby hills and use it to regreen the desert. And finally, Step Five: the natural watersheds are restored. These five steps follow the same basic principles that have successfully regreened other areas of the world, with modifications to customize the process for the Sinai region specifically.

We are obligated to understand this and find a solution, not only for ourselves but for life and human civilization. The process of regreening the Sinai would take 20 to 40 years, as it has with comparable projects, simply because it takes decades for the lost plants and trees to grow back, but progress would be noticeable after just three years and could be sped up by bringing in additional water.

As just one example and based on his calculations — which themselves are based on the historic data from when the lagoon was at its original size — Van der Hoeven is convinced that the hydraulic regeneration of the lagoon and regenerative fish management can provide 50, tons of fish up from the 5, tons of fish that are there now and thus feed the locals like it did in the past.

The Egyptian government seems willing to fund at least the first phase, but unrest in the Sinai has so far delayed the project. Still, Van der Hoeven hopes to begin soon. From the outside, the setup looks like a greenhouse. Inside are transparent plastic barrels where Van der Hoeven grows phytoplankton, the basic component of the food web, as well as algae, fungi, worms and insects that restore soil health. Condensation is captured and fed back to the plants as freshwater, allowing the eco-machines to revitalize the marine sediments.

Once restored, these sediments will eventually support larger plants and fish, like tilapia.