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Egypt has managed to plant trees in the desert using wastewater

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Re: Egypt has managed to plant trees in the desert using wastewater

#71

Post by classfigment »

PakG1 wrote: post #69
andai wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they emulate a canopy with some kind of tarp while the trees are growing?

Wouldn't a tarp get in the way of sunlight, stopping photosynthesis?

We 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.

Re: Egypt has managed to plant trees in the desert using wastewater

#72

Post by nitrogen »

foxhop wrote: post #51
Pfhreak wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 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.)

I 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 - http…

Have 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=PLKhDkilF5o68NFFy5p5nM...

Anyway, gave you a sub and liked the video on fresh salsa. Home grown salsa is incomparable to any other.

Re: Egypt has managed to plant trees in the desert using wastewater

#73

Post by da39a3ee »

Climate 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.

Re: Egypt has managed to plant trees in the desert using wastewater

#74

Post by gibolt »

PakG1 wrote: post #69
andai wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they emulate a canopy with some kind of tarp while the trees are growing?

Wouldn't a tarp get in the way of sunlight, stopping photosynthesis?

Plants don't use most of the sunlight that hits them, and too much will cause heat stress making them less efficient.

The right tarp or net that lets through the most useful wavelengths seems to help more than hurt.

A lot of places are starting to install solar over farm installations on a small scale. Yields are tending up while also generating electricity to run the operation

Re: Egypt has managed to plant trees in the desert using wastewater

#75

Post by sudosysgen »

MrSourz wrote: post #20
danans wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That 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.

Something 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 re…

The 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.

Re: Egypt has managed to plant trees in the desert using wastewater

#76

Post by da39a3ee »

johntfella wrote: post #44

Does 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.

They are listed here: 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.

Re: Egypt has managed to plant trees in the desert using wastewater

#77

Post by johntfella »

da39a3ee wrote: post #76
johntfella wrote: post #44

Does 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.

They are listed here: 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 Afric…

Thanks.

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-tree...

Re: Egypt has managed to plant trees in the desert using wastewater

#78

Post by htnsao »

nashashmi wrote: post #56
htnsao wrote: post #39

There'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…

Not 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.

You missed the part about only needing to fill it once.

Re: Egypt has managed to plant trees in the desert using wastewater

#79

Post by nextaccountic »

headmelted wrote: post #28

Is 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 irrigati…

Yes, it is. The Sahara was green some 15000 years ago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_humid_period
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