#desertification

1 week ago

Our innovation testing is underway in the Kebili (Tunisia) pilot area with farmers.
In Tunisia we are implementing three innovations: a wood-based gel product that stores water (Agrobiogel), an artificial soil product (CETIM) and a compost production system from Isotech.

#desertification

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TERRASAFE | Combatting desertification with innovations for empowering communities in Europe and North Africa TERRASAFE is a major 5-year research project. Our overarching goal is to significantly empower local communities in southern Europe and northern Africa to confront the growing threats of…

2 weeks ago

Follow us or sign up to our newsletter @ terrasafe.eu to learn how impactful they are.

#desertification #horizoneu

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Human-induced biospheric carbon sink: Impact from the Taklamakan Afforestation Project | PNAS The Taklamakan Desert, one of the world’s largest and driest deserts, has traditionally been considered a biological void. Here, we demonstrate tha...

1 month ago

[6/6] Il s’agit du premier exemple documenté d’un désert partiellement transformé en puits de carbone par action humaine. Si l’effet sur les tempêtes de sable reste débattu, le modèle pourrait inspirer d’autres régions arides. #geography #desertification #afforestation #China

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China has planted so many trees around the Taklamakan Desert that it's turned this 'biological void' into a carbon sink Huge-scale ecological engineering around the edges of one of the world's largest and driest deserts has turned it into a carbon sink that absorbs more CO2 than it emits, research suggests.

1 month ago

[1/6] Une étude montre que l’afforestation autour du désert du #Taklamakan transforme ses marges en puits de carbone. Ce désert de 337.000 km², longtemps qualifié de "vide biologique", absorbe désormais plus de CO2 qu’il n’en émet. #geography #desertification #afforestation #China

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1 month ago

What does desertification feel like to those coping with it? Spanish farmers José and Juan work with TERRASAFE researchers to implement innovations to combat desertification, and here they talk about what's happening to the landscape as desertification accelerates.

#desertification #climatechange

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1 month ago

Carob is the new future-food - nutritious, tasty and, because it can survive on just 250 millimetres of rainfall per year, a crop than can be grown in dryland areas.

Head over to our blog to read all about this new superfood 🍪 terrasafe.eu/2026/01/30/c...

#desertification #superfoods #farming

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1 month ago

Examples of sand-drift mitigation and dune-stabilization measures. (A) Engineered dune field with controlled sand-accumulation zones. (B) Sand fences are installed to reduce wind speed and trap migrating sand. (C) Vegetation-based dune stabilization using low, hardy shrubs. and (D) Combined structural and vegetative measures to limit erosion and retain sand. The figure was generated by using Midjourney AI (v6) and Adobe Photoshop (2019)..

[8/8] Stabilisation, végétalisation et solutions fondées sur la nature offrent des retours économiques élevés et limitent les risques futurs. L’ensablement apparaît comme un facteur structurant des trajectoires des régions sahariennes habitées.
#geography #desertification #Nile #Egypt

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Growing dune encroachment threatens the habitability of the western Nile riverbank - Scientific Reports Sand dune encroachment poses a significant environmental challenge for peri-urban and rural communities in the North African desert, which is home to more than one-third of the region’s population. Th...

1 month ago

[1/8] Des chercheurs égyptiens étudient l’avancée des dunes sur la rive ouest du Nil. Le travail met en évidence un risque territorial majeur. L’ensablement fragilise durablement l’agriculture, l’habitat et les réseaux d’une région stratégique.
#geography #desertification #Nile #Egypt

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1 month ago

The floods in Valencia, Spain in 2024 showed that drought and floods come together as #climatechange impacts. In Murcia, Spain, José Méndez has developed a tool to create dips in the earth that can help prevent run-off.

#desertification #EUHorizon

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En Chine, des microalgues pour faire reculer le désert En Chine, la lutte contre la désertification entre dans une nouvelle phase. Dans les régions arides du nord-ouest, des scientifiques utilisent des algues microscopiques pour transformer le sable en so...

1 month ago

[1/4] Clea Broadhurst présente des recherches de scientifiques chinois spécialisés en écologie et sciences du sol. Ils analysent l’usage de #cyanobactéries dans les déserts du nord-ouest de la Chine pour transformer le sable en sol fonctionnel. #geography #desertification #drylands #China

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Sharing the best of humanity with the world, one story at a tim…

1 month ago

[6/6] Le recyclage du cachemire limite la pression sur les milieux mais reste techniquement imparfait. Les données montrent une tension durable entre marchés mondialisés et capacités écologiques locales.
#geography #pastoralism #desertification #cachemire

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@upworthy.com.web.brid.gy

1 month ago

'Forgotten' system for harvesting water transforms 'barren wasteland' into lush farmland Can a farm grow in a desert without bringing in enormous amounts of water? With the right method, yes. In 2007, the Great Green Wall initiative was launched by the African Union, with a vision of a big, beautiful wall of greenery spanning the width of Africa to keep the Sahara Desert from encroaching on the rest of the continent. Since then, there have been successes and failures, celebration and criticism, and the future of the project is tenuous. However, we can still see within it some inspiring examples of how local and global collaboration can help counter the effects of climate change. Just a few years ago, the Sahel region at the northern edge of Senegal was a "barren wasteland" where nothing had grown for 40 years. But the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and local villagers teamed up to regreen the area, bringing back agriculture, improving the economy of the people who live there, and preventing the climate migration that desertification ultimately leads to. Severe erosion and wind drifting sand after Sahel Drought in northern Burkina FasoPhoto credit: Canva ## How do you hold back the world's largest hot desert? According to Andrew Millison, a permaculture designer and instructor at Oregon State University, the Sahara desert has expanded by about 10% in the past 100 years. The idea behind the Great Green Wall is to build a barrier of vegetation to stop that desertification, which threatens the ecosystems and economies of the Sahel—the region south of the Sahara that separates the desert from the savanna. In a video from February of 2024, Millison shared the collaborative nature and progress of one Great Green Wall project in Senegal, including the rejuvenation of 300,000 hectares (about the equivalent of 600,000 football fields) of seemingly unusable land. Watch: - YouTube youtu.be "The process started with the community-based participatory planning," WFP program policy officer Bakalilou Diaby shares in the video. "By the end of this process, it was agreed that one of the major action is the land reclamation or land recovery project." At first, it took some time to convince the community that the regreening of the degraded landscape was even possible, but after learning about how to improve the land, "the people believe and they are convinced, and they are also committed," says Diaby. ## The 'forgotten' half-moon method of harvesting water One of the keys to this particular regreening project is using long-forgotten techniques for harvesting water. When soil is crusted and sunbaked and hard as cement, rainwater doesn't penetrate and it's impossible for plants to take root. The solution? Half-moon-shaped ditches dug in such a way that water flows into them on the straight side, with an embankment built on the rounded side to hold the water in. Each half moon is 4 meters in diameter and takes about a day for one person to dig. Local vegetation domesticated on the Sahel thousands of years ago, such as sorghum and millet, are planted in these half-moons, rehabilitating the land and feeding the local community at the same time. "This is nothing new—we have not invented a technology here," explains Sebastian Muller from the WFP resilience team. "The half moon technology is actually an endogenous technology to the Sahel and has been forgotten over time. We have rescued it from the past." An oasis in the SahelPhoto credit: Canva Not only does capturing water in the half moons help with the immediate need to grow food and contribute to the Great Green Wall, but 10% to 15% of the water will actually soak into the ground to replenish the water table, creating a more sustainable agricultural process. "That way we actually achieve a balance of water. So we are not depleting the water resources, but we're making sure that we keep enough water in the ground for future generations," says Muller. Other crops such as okra and tomatoes are grown in horizontal horticulture beds, and between those ditches grow trenches with fruit trees in them. > — (@) ## Engaging indigenous wisdom for sustainable farming "This is just a very first step in this pilot," adds Muller. "We'll also be using other native species that will be planting in the pits that will drive the rejuvenation of the soil and the protection of the soil as the system starts growing into abundance and producing food and life for the people here." According to Muller, the "syntropic farming" methods being employed were developed in Brazil and are based on global indigenous practices that mimic the way natural forests grow and thrive. These natural growing dynamics make agriculture more sustainable, continually replenishing the land rather than continually depleting it—truly a testament to global collaboration carried out at the local level with local community support. "This project was really, really interesting because the World Food Programme wanted to demonstrate how you could take the most devastated areas and turn them back into resilient, food-producing locations," says Millison. "And they specifically placed their project on a very degraded landscape that had been taken down to bare, compacted earth." Desert "wasteland" can be cultivated with innovative methods.Photo credit: Canva Unfortunately, it's not only a changing climate that we have to contend with. The Great Green Wall in the West African nations of Nigeria, Niger, and Burkina Faso, has been impacted by terrorism and insurgencyterrorism and insurgency. Such widespread insecurity makes doing the environmental work the project demands difficult, and in some cases, impossible. Still, if this desertified "wasteland" can be rejuvenated so successfully, it provides hope for recovering other land that many people might write off as useless or barren. As climate change continues to alter the Earth's landscape—literally—we'll need to keep working together both locally and globally to find solutions like the Great Green Wall and support their implementation. You can learn more about successful permaculture practices on Andrew Millison's YouTube channel. _This article originally appeared in January._

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Hublai (charismatic megafauna)

1 month ago

José and Juan are two of the farmers working with TERRASAFE researchers on strategies to combat desertification. In this video, they talk about why it's so important to work with others to learn, and what saving the soil means to them and future generations.

#desertification #soilscience

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@hublai.bsky.social

2 months ago

The Solar Sheep #solarpanel #sheep #chinatravel #desert #barren #solarenergy #power #learnchinese YouTube video by A Chinese Translator

Well:

- #zincsulfur & #sodiumion need no lithium

- much more bird habitat is lost to fossil

- #agrisolar can undo #desertification
youtube.com/shorts/es31T...

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The World Federation for Animals

@wfa.org

2 months ago

#DYK termites are tiny engineers? 🐜

They aerate soils, boost water absorption, and create fertile islands, helping plants survive droughts. This builds resilience against #desertification and #ClimateChange.

https://ow.ly/UZnL50XQW8M #ClimateHeroes

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Climate, Ecology, War & More - Dr Glen Barry BigEarthData.ai

Socioeconomic and climatic factors influencing desertification in Saudi Arabia through an ... Derouez, F. Technological advancements and economic growth as key drivers of renewable energy production in Saudi arabia: an ARDL and VECM analysis. Energies 18 (2177). https://doi.org/10.3390/en18092177 (2025). Faten, F. et al. Energy, Technology, and Economic Growth in Saudi Arabia: An...

2 months ago

Socioeconomic and climatic factors influencing desertification in Saudi Arabia through an ...
->Nature | #Desertification | More from Lil Dr Glen EcoChat at BigEarthData.ai

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Climate, Ecology, War & More - Dr Glen Barry BigEarthData.ai

How Central Europe's 'water guardians' are fighting desertification Oszkár Nagyapáti climbed to the bottom of a sandy pit on his land on the Great Hungarian Plain and dug into the soil with his hand, looking for a sign of groundwater that in recent years has been in accelerating...

2 months ago

How Central Europe's 'water guardians' are fighting desertification
->The Hindu | #Water #Desertification | More from Lil Dr Glen EcoChat at BigEarthData.ai

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Climate, Ecology, War & More - Dr Glen Barry BigEarthData.ai

Hungary's ' water guardian' farmers fight back against desertification KISKUNMAJSA, Hungary -- Oszkár Nagyapáti climbed to the bottom of a sandy pit on his land on the Great Hungarian Plain and dug into the soil with his hand, looking for a sign of groundwater that in recent years has...

2 months ago

Hungary's ' water guardian' farmers fight back against desertification
->ABC News | #Desertification #Water | More from Lil Dr Glen EcoChat at BigEarthData.ai

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🟪 Team Dogs | 1.5°C > Normal?! 🌎

@porcelainteacup04.bsky.social

2 months ago

‘When you plant something, it dies’: Brazil’s first arid zone is a stark warning for the whole country The Caatinga in the north-east has been transformed by the heating climate in just a generation and could become the country’s first desert

Thread | Grandma seemed to have taken an image seriously. She seemed legitimately shocked and brought up the word "extinction." #Earth1stalways #Environmentalism #ClimateCrisis #ecojustice #desertification #Brazil #CLIMATEMERGENCY

www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

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Vince

@vincetinguely.bsky.social

2 months ago

‘When you plant something, it dies’: Brazil’s first arid zone is a stark warning for the whole country The Caatinga in the north-east has been transformed by the heating climate in just a generation and could become the country’s first desert

'In the area newly classified as arid, average annual rainfall fell below 400mm during the period 1990 to 2020. It’s a climate shift that has taken place over just one generation.'
#brazil #elnorte #climate #drought #weather #science #water #food #desertification #environment #ecology

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Rafagas Links

@rafagaslinks.bsky.social

2 months ago

The Atlas of Desertification in Spain (PDF) presents maps highlighting one of the country's major environmental issues, aimed at compiling an inventory of cases and finding solutions #desertification

atlas-desertificacion.ua.es/es/mapas.html

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Climate, Ecology, War & More - Dr Glen Barry BigEarthData.ai

2 months ago

It locks carbon into the soil, reducing CO₂ emissions and strengthening climate resilience.

Ecochar is being tested in Cyprus, Romania, and Spain.

#TERRASAFE #Ecochar #Biochar #SoilRestoration #Desertification #HorizonEU #ClimateAction

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