[ExI] Greening the Sahara

[Mirco Romanato]

Dan ha scritto:
> Any ideas on how to do this?
> 
> An idea I had was to cover strategic swaths of it with dark material,
> thereby causing its daytime temperature to rise causing the air to
> rise faster pulling in more moist air from the costs. Once rainfall
> is higher, it seems the greening would take care of itself.
> 
> Any thoughts on this?

It would raise the temperature locally, big time. Killing the life there.

The best way to green the desert is to plant trees, many trees.
The biggest problem is to keep the water from sinking down, becoming
unavailable or washing up salt poisoning the terrain.
The solution is hydrophobic sands.

The plan is simple, and locals already do it with low technology around
their orchards.

The sands is not so costly, so it is possible to deploy it and profit of
the new terrain available for agriculture.
The hydrophobic sand can be packed inside a tape-like structure and
deployed 2-3 meters under the terrain. Then, all the water will stay
near the surface and will be available to the plants roots.

Planting trees and letting them grow will provide a cover of the
terrain, that will reduce the evaporation and the temperature at the
ground level.

This need to start around existing oasis and water bodies and grow from
there.

Mirco