Do you own any desert?
OK then go on and terraform it. But be careful, because it goes wrong more often than right.
such a fun guy
No, that’s why I’m asking here.
History teaches us that when we mess with the ecosystem, something dies/extinct
Deserts are actually very important to the worlds ecosystem. The Amazon rainforest probably wouldnt exist without the Sahara. A lot of the Sahara’s sand is made up of dead plankton and these dead plankton are blown across the seas by strong winds and eventually land in the amazon. These plankton give the soil extra nutrients and are one of the main reasons why the south Americans are so lush with life.
Likewise Australia has rainforest dependent on coral reefs and vice versa to survive.
They also landed in England the other week, all the cars were filthy lol
Poor cars enjoying extra nutrients from dead plankton in peace while this guy comes and call them filthy!
Yeah, we shouldn’t kink shame.
Your first sentence is true, the rest is disputed https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-020-00071-w
Saltwater doesn’t revive soil, it kills it.
Were you planning on desalinating the seawater first? Because that requires an immense amount of energy to do, and we haven’t even touched on the topic of the energy required to move water from one place to another.
If you weren’t planning on desalinating the seawater, then the salt will definitely destroy whatever nutrients the desert sand might have had, rendering seawater irrigation completely pointless.
I remember somebody pointing out that one of the interesting projects that would become available with the development of Fusion energy would be large scale terraforming of deserts. The technology we essentially already have, the problem is that the current technology is incredibly energy inefficient, but if we don’t care about energy efficiency, because we essentially have more than we will ever know what to do with, we can just go ham.
more than we will ever know what to do with
That’ll last maybe five minutes
Just think of how many monkey jpgs we could make with that kind of energy!
Two?
Saltwater destroys soil and vegetation instead of facilitating its existence. And you’d need to add better soil and the means to produce more fertile soil (plant species that shed leaves often and have nitrogen-fixing microbes in their roots).
But such water would make rain in the surrounding area more likely and common, if it can be sustained. For instance, I hear there are plans to re-create an inlet in northern Libya that used to exist but dried up when it was cut off from the Mediterranean by an earthquake that pushed up a natural dam some 6000 years ago or something, so the surroundings can become greener. (But given the current flooding of roughly that same area, doing so would be a terrible idea for the people who now live in that below-sea-level area.)
Better yet, use Brawndo!
It got what plants crave, electrolytes
What even are electrolytes? Does anyone know!?
It’s what plants crave duh
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Those issues (salt and scale) are not mutually exclusive. And I don’t think that it’s even remotely contributive to assume ignorance from other posters.
Salt.
If the area’s enviroment didn’t have it to start with adding it will kill off whatever lives there.
Also? Generally there’s a reason it’s a desert (lack of rainfall,) and is itself (usually) a vibrant ecosystem.
Most land based plants would die if fed saltwater.
The water would in most cases sink away below the surface too.
While that’s true, a large saltwater deposit somewhere arid would allow for water to evaporate into the air and create humidity and increase the probability of rain occurring in that area regularly.
If by “large Saltwater deposit” you mean “an ocean” then maybe. Pumped sea water? No.
Is rain, too, not salty?
No. The salt gets left behind when water evaporates.
Compared to a river, yes. Compared to the ocean, no.
Rainwater typically has a TDS of 20 mg/L or less. Fresh water from lakes, rivers, and groundwater is more variable, with TDS ranging from 20 mg/L to approximately 1,000 mg/L. Brackish water is, by definition, water with TDS exceeding 1,000 mg/L and ranging as high as that of seawater, at approximately 35,000 mg/L.
Most deserts have life, which you would kill. But for sandy deserts, have you never built a sand castle?
The reasons are legion, starting with the fact that it wouldn’t work.
Have you ever heard the phrase “salt the earth”? That’s the fastest way to kill everything in the soil and make sure nothing grows for a very very long time.
It’s not a very very long time. Rain will wash it away. However in a desert, you’re right.
Carthago delenda est
Project plowshare 2.0
First off, the water would need to be desalinated or you would ensure the land would be unsuitable for farming (and really growing anything) for generations.
Also, sand doesn’t hold water. In fact, when planting trees and other bushes, if you want more drainage, you typically add rocks and sand.
Second, most plants need non-sandy soil to grow on (palm trees and other beach bushes and plants aside) though those grow in areas that have lots of rain already.
Thirdly, the soil will need bacteria to aid the plants in obtaining nutrients and breaking down waste (dead leaves, dead plantlife, etc).
The way to do it is to look at a couple of projects that are fighting against desertification in Africa:
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The Great Green Wall https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/great-green-wall/
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Using compostable waste to fertilize soil https://jstories.media/article/greening-the-desert-with-trash
You’ll notice that many of these projects start at the edges of deserts. Instead of relying on pumping water onto sandy soil (which would just suck up the water as sand doesn’t hold water that well) they focus on extending the non desert ecosystem onto the desert so that the new soil will absorb water better, the weather over the newly terraformed area will be less dry, and it will eventually be self sustaining.
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A lot of deserts get a fresh water pulse occasionally, and things spring back to life. If you take that away it destroys more ecology. You’re better off making multilevel greenspace in the cities.
