Land restoration

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Land restoration, which may include renaturalisation or

ecosystem services
that benefit people.

Maui, Hawaii
, 2010

Repairing damaged land

Land restoration can include the process of cleaning up and rehabilitating a site that has sustained

strip mining), to restore that area back to its natural state as a wildlife home and balanced habitat
.

Countering desertification

Thar desert
, India.
Further information: Countering desertification

Land reclamation in deserts involves

  • setting up reliable water provisioning (e.g. by digging
    wells
    or placing long-distance water pipes)
  • stabilizing and fixating the soil

Stabilizing and fixating the soil is usually done in several phases.

The first phase is fixating the soil to such extent that dune movement is ceased. This is done by grasses, and plants providing wind protection such as

shelterbelts, windbreaks and woodlots. Shelterbelts are wind protections composed of rows of trees, arranged perpendicular to the prevailing wind, while woodlots are more extensive areas of woodland.[1]

The second phase involves improving/enriching the soil by planting nitrogen-fixating plants and using the soil immediately to grow crops.

date, olives, limes, figs, apricot, guava, tomato, certain herbs, etc. Regardless of the cover crop used, the crops (not including any trees) are each year harvested and/or plowed into the soil (e.g. with clover). In addition, each year the plots are used for another type of crop (known as crop rotation
) to prevent depleting the soil on specific trace elements.

A recent development is the

Seawater Greenhouse and Seawater Forest. This proposal is to construct these devices on coastal deserts in order to create fresh water and grow food.[2] A similar approach is the Desert Rose concept.[3] These approaches are of widespread applicability, since the relative costs of pumping large quantities of seawater inland are low.[4]

Another related concept is ADRECS – a proposed system for rapidly delivering soil stabilisation and re-forestation techniques coupled with renewable energy generation.[5]

See also

References

  1. ^ Desert reclamation
  2. ^ The Sahara Project a new source of freshwater food and energy
  3. ^ Desert Rose - Claverton Group Energy Conference, Bath October 2008
  4. ^ "what power is needed to pump seawater to the middle of the Gobi Desert for desalination in the SeaWater Greenhouse?".
  5. ^ http://www.claverton-energy.com/download/320/[permanent dead link]

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Land restoration.
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