Why don't we pump seawater into deserts to revive them?

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• ma11en@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Most land based plants would die if fed saltwater.

  The water would in most cases sink away below the surface too.

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  • foggy@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    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.

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    • DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      If by “large Saltwater deposit” you mean “an ocean” then maybe. Pumped sea water? No.

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  • nutbutter@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Is rain, too, not salty?

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    • dustyData@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Compared to a river, yes. Compared to the ocean, no.

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    • poppy@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      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.

      watereuse.org/salinity-management/ls/ls_3d.html

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• LordOfTheChia@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  So 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:

  1. The Great Green Wall …nationalgeographic.org/…/great-green-wall/

  2. Using compostable waste to fertilize soil jstories.media/…/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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• pwnicholson@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  It’s been done before (though not intentionally at first), at the Salton Sea.

  And the results weren’t that bad (granted possibly a smaller scale than some are imagining when they forecast doom).

  ppic.org/…/the-troubled-history-and-uncertain-fut…

  But the problem is any deserts are deserts for a reason: lack of rainfall and/or natural inflow from rainwater upstream. The result is that you have to keep pumping in tons of water and/or rely on agricultural runoff which is nutrient-depleted and usually full of chemicals.

  Read the rest of the linked article for what’s going on with that one.

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  • HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    It is also important to note that most of the water that made the Salton Sea came from the Colorado River being rerouted back into California, then from irrigation water seepage.

    Even then, the Salton Sea has a hard time supporting marine life. I can’t imagine making it a salt water lake would really help the local wildlife.

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• dumbcrumb@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  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.

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  • Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Your first sentence is true, the rest is disputed www.nature.com/articles/s43247-020-00071-w

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  • HonoraryMancunian@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    They also landed in England the other week, all the cars were filthy lol

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    • Blizzard@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Poor cars enjoying extra nutrients from dead plankton in peace while this guy comes and call them filthy!

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  • cooopsspace@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Likewise Australia has rainforest dependent on coral reefs and vice versa to survive.

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• ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  The sheer volume of water that moves through even a small creek is shockingly massive.

  The amount of water held in an aquifer is astounding.

  The soils required for agriculture and general growing plants (ones that hold water and nutriet) specifically are lacking or depleted in deserts.

  So… it’s a literal pipe dream.

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  • thepianistfroggollum@lemmynsfw.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    You’re wrong about the soil nutrient content in deserts. Or at least it’s not a blanket statement like that since some deserts are essential in providing soil nutrients to other parts of the world through wind.

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    • ForgotAboutDre@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Deserts can have lots of minerals and the sand/dust is carried on the wind. Theses are important but the desert won’t be high in nitrogen and carbon.

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    • ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Oh the nutrients are there, the composition of the soil is what is lacking so those nutrients don’t infiltrate into water well so plants can’t access them. It’s mostly sand and clay, lacking in silts for proper loams and organic matter.

      Also there’s usually a ton of salt in desert sand that doesn’t help.

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  • dipshit@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Aquifers! Aquifers all over the land!

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• Saraphim@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  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.

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  • EmoDuck@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Carthago delenda est

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  • indetermin8@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    It’s not a very very long time. Rain will wash it away. However in a desert, you’re right.

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• AnalogyAddict@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  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.

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• Treczoks@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Because that’s how you make salt lakes. Instead of reviving them, it would kill off the last remaining traces of life.

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• don@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  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.

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  • echodot@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    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.

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    • caseyweederman@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      more than we will ever know what to do with

      That’ll last maybe five minutes

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• Nemo@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  In addition to what everyone else already said, it takes a tremendous amount of energy to pump water uphill.

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  • Junkers_Klunker@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    [deleted]

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    • Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I wouldn’t quit your day job… the career in stand up doesn’t seem like it’s going places…

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    • PP_BOY_@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Upvoted solely because this is the sort of unhinged comment that I missed about the old internet

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    • marsokod@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Even as a slave, the cost of a human work is magnitudes above the cost of using a pump with petrol. A slave may be able to output ~1kWh per day, that’s mostly a few 10s of cents anywhere. Can you feed anyone on that?

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    • Gadg8eer@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Why? They have dump trucks and dams in Africa, you know. Or did you think this was before Africa became the world’s fastest-growing and biggest market for cell phones?

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• FuglyDuck@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  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.

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• Nastybutler@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Better yet, use Brawndo!

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  • SickPanda@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    It got what plants crave, electrolytes

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    • Nastybutler@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      What even are electrolytes? Does anyone know!?

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• Epicurus0319@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  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).

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• jet@hackertalks.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  If the ice caps keep melting, we’re going to see what happens! In real time

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  • TheBananaKing@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I’m just saying we conincidentally also have a problem with billions of plastic water bottles littering up the place.

    Now, call me a fool, but…

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• roo@lemmy.one ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  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.

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• Tom_bishop@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  History teaches us that when we mess with the ecosystem, something dies/extinct

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• Spacehooks@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Project plowshare 2.0

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• NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Do you own any desert?

  OK then go on and terraform it. But be careful, because it goes wrong more often than right.

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  • Dsklnsadog@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    such a fun guy

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  • ABCDE@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    No, that’s why I’m asking here.

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• collegefurtrader@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Why would you want to?

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  • ABCDE@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    For more plant life/oxygen, and absorption of greenhouse gases.

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• angrystego@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Because that would turn the delicious deserts into disgusting salty porridge. I’m terribly sorry.

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• AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I was thinking that a solution to rising sea levels could be a canal from the Atlantic to that part of the Sahara that’s below sea level.

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  • Dr_Cog@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    You may be underestimating how much water is in the ocean

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    • AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      The Sahara is fairly big, and a new Sahara Sea should pick up some of the water that otherwise would have ended up over, say, Venice or Miami.

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  • zoe@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    The mariana trench is also below sea level lol

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