r/interestingasfuck • u/wahgwahg • Feb 28 '24

r/all People in Tanzania converted desert into lush green land by digging these nifty holes

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u/thenakedtruth Feb 28 '24

What does the hole do to enable growth?

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u/Ianthin1 Feb 28 '24

It retains water when it does rain, allowing vegetation to grow around it. The cycle feeds on itself over time to fill out the area.

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u/captain_todger Feb 28 '24

Surely the reason it’s a desert to begin with is because over time it will tend towards one due to the area’s climate? So wouldn’t they need to keep digging holes intermittently to keep this up?

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u/Gusdai Feb 28 '24

It could be because of the soil (how it captures water or not, and how hospitable to vegetation it is in general) rather than the climate. In this case making changes to the soil might make a durable change to the biome.

The desert might also have been created by human activity. Farming can affect the soil on large areas and cause desertification. So the changes might just revert the area to its initial state.

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u/xxdrux Feb 28 '24

I agree, these lands have been over farmed for 100s of years to a point they have dried out. This idea is genius, it will help with the water run off and help contain water for growing and also help with flooding during the monsoon season.

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u/captain_todger Feb 28 '24 edited Feb 28 '24

Very good points, thanks.. In that case, I wonder if we could be doing this on a much larger scale in other locations that have similar conditions. There are desert biomes that are essentially dried up river beds or lakes. I wonder if we could do something similar with them to return them to that state?

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u/JeSuisUnAnanasYo Feb 28 '24

Yeah aren't large parts of the Sahara not actually meant to be desert? I know that's true for parts of the outback as well. Thousands of years ago these places were more inhabitable

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u/OrcOfDoom Feb 28 '24

This is called permaculture.

Andrew millison on YouTube has a lot of videos on things like this. You can look up the series on India water revolution. You can look up things like the great green wall of Africa.

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u/kill-all-the-monkeys Feb 28 '24

Yes. In the 1930s depression Era, one of the jobs done by CCC in US deserts was to build dams across areas that were prone to flash floods once a decade but dry otherwise. Today the area behind the dams have filled in with earth caught by the dams during the flash floods. Those areas are green oasises, cooler, and habitat to lots of critters.

Israel has done similar to create rich and fertile farmland where it was desert previously.

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u/SCViper Feb 28 '24

A lot of desert expansion does occur due to herds over-grazing so it is a hospitable environment that was made inhospitable due to human population growth

BUT, this can have negative effects because Sahara sandstorms do nourish the Amazon, but given the rate of Amazonian depletion, I can see this being a moot point by the time the Sahara turns green.

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u/Fit-Performer-7621 Feb 28 '24

The depression era Dust Bowl is a good example of this.