Contour bunding is a fairly simple method of retaining topsoil and moisture and is one of several methods being used with significant effect to re-green the Sahara.
It consists of placing lines of stones along slopes and contours on the land to help rainfall soak in, and to stop topsoil washing away.
And that is helping to transform thousands of hectares into productive fields – where nothing grew just a decade ago.
This story has been going around the various media channels for some time popping up every now and then. Good news and positive techniques like contour bunding need coverage because there are relatively simple and inexpensive solutions out there for African farmers located in and around the Sahara.
The technique is explained here.
A report on the success of re-greening the Sahara here.
That’s pretty interesting and a great idea. i hope it gets more coverage and really picks up.
[...] http://environmentsolutions.wordpress.com/2007/08/14/greening-the-sahara-to-reverse-desertification/ [...]
Interesting and hopeful stuff Matt.
Here’s a little quiz to to test your knowledge: http://managingwholes.com/quiz/index.php?quiz=4
I scored 4 out of 6. :blush:
Interesting little quiz. I got 3. Tricky!
If the Sahara were to return to it’s previous lushness as in the Friday Sept 16,2005 article by David Adam. It sounds like it would possibly be a greater carbon sink than any proposal that I have read about.
Building a canal to The Qatarra depresion and dumping the Mediteranean in it as has been proposed for nearly a hundred years now. might speed up the process.
The project was originally to make electricity but can be engineered to make fresh water cheaply, remove bicarbonates ( CO2+H20 ) make bicarbonates which is the form most CO2 is in the seas. It would also add water vapor to the atmosphere over land. It would also help reduce sea levels. It’s been said that the depression could hold all the ice in greenland.
The prvailing winds over Africa are from the Mediteranean to Ethiopia. The sea currents on the north coast of Egypt are west to east at 6 miles per hour. If te canal was wide and shallow it could support mangrove swamps shellfish and fish and birds a natural sourse of fertilizer and food.
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Interesting idea. Certainly most of Egypt survives because of the Nile.
If a tunnel was bored through the mountains north of Congo the Congo’s northern tributary could be diverted in to Lak Chad & my guess is that that river could keep pouring water into the Sahara for a century before it reached the Mediteranean.