Multifaceted Desert Regeneration System Inspired by Ecosystems

Innovation: Industry

Sahara Forest Project

2012

Image: Giorgio Parravicini / Unsplash / CC BY SA - Creative Commons Attribution + ShareAlike

Maintain Biodiversity

The greater the amount of genetic and species variation in an ecosystem, the more resilient that ecosystem is to disturbances. Variation in ecosystems across the Earth also contributes to the Earth’s resilience to unpredictable changes. This variation is called biodiversity. Because living systems compete with each other for scarce resources, maintaining biodiversity involves creating conditions for a large variety of species to successfully co-occur and reproduce. For example, within a wetland, there are different vegetation types. This diversity results in a complex mosaic of microenvironments as the vegetation types alter air flows, light regimes, and water temperatures and chemistry. Because organisms vary in their ideal environmental conditions, these micro-environments increase the diversity of plants in the wetland. In turn, having a wetland in an otherwise dry area increases biodiversity at an even larger scale.

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Detoxification/Purification of Air/Water/Waste

Ecosystems must be effective at cleaning air, water, and waste because so much of what is in the air, water, and waste is valuable to organisms as resources. In contrast to functions that detoxify or purify at the organism level, this is at a larger scale. To be effective at the ecosystem level, it isn’t the individual efforts of a few organisms that detoxifies and purifies, but the actions of a wide diversity of organisms each contributing to the whole. For example, as water flows through an ecosystem, either aboveground or in the soil, a diversity of organisms take different actions to slow it down, capture excess nutrients from it, and break down harmful chemicals into more benign ones.

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Cooperate Within an Ecosystem

An ecosystem is a community of organisms (plants, animals, and microbes) interacting with one another and the nonliving components of their environment (such as air, water, and mineral soil). This interaction can be passive or active, and can cooperatively enhance the functioning of the ecosystem as a whole. For cooperation to contribute to maintaining communities within an ecosystem, it must be beneficial to at least some members of the community. Cooperation consists of symbiotic relationships, such as mutualism (in which two or more species in an ecosystem benefit) and commensalism (in which one species benefits and the effect on others is neutral). An example of a commensal relationship is that between bromeliad plants and trees: bromeliads live on trees without harming them. Bromeliads have mutualistic relationships with other species, including insects, frogs, and worms. The plants capture water in their base, forming a pond that these organisms join. The nutrients that these organisms excrete in their droppings nourish the bromeliad.

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Transform Radiant Energy (Light)

The sun is the ultimate source of energy for many living systems. The sun emits radiant energy, which is carried by light and other electromagnetic radiation as streams of photons. When radiant energy reaches a living system, two events can happen. The radiant energy can convert to heat, or living systems can convert it to chemical energy. The latter conversion is not simple, but is a multi-step process starting when living systems such as algae, some bacteria, and plants capture photons. For example, a potato plant captures photons then converts the light energy into chemical energy through photosynthesis, storing the chemical energy underground as carbohydrates. The carbohydrates in turn feed other living systems.

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Capture, Absorb, or Filter Energy

Energy is naturally available in many forms, including kinetic, potential, thermal, elastic, radiant, chemical, and more. All living systems require energy to carry out their many activities, and have developed strategies appropriate to one or more of those forms. For example, some plants maximize their surface area available for capturing radiant energy from the sun while others have strategies to focus scattered light onto photosynthesizing areas.

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Sahara Forest Project creates a saltwater value chain to generate electricity, produce freshwater, and revegetate desert lands.

Benefits

Increased biodiversity
Restorative
Adaptable
Reduced emissions

Applications

Energy generation
Agriculture

UN Sustainable Development Goals Addressed

Goal 11: Sustainable Cities & Communities
Goal 12: Responsible Production & Consumption

The Challenge

The world is facing intertwined challenges of food, water and energy security, as well as climate change and desertification. These challenges require new approaches to how the world generates electricity and reduces emissions. Most energy is generated through the burning of fossil fuels, which release carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. These gases absorb solar energy and keep heat close to the Earth, known as the greenhouse effect, leading to global warming.

Innovation Details

The Sahara Forest Project functions similarly to an ecosystem by using natural resources to produce food, water, and vegetation, and increase . It is a commercially viable way to bring saltwater into the desert, and also works as an enabling technology, creating opportunities for a wide range of businesses to develop alongside it. These include salt extraction, traditional desalination, algae production, halophyte cultivation, mariculture, bioenergy and more. The core technologies include saltwater-cooled greenhouses, solar power for electricity and power generation, and technologies for desert revegetation. Additionally, the soil and plants within these processes also assist in sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The Sahara Forest Project aims to bring saltwater to the desert.

Biological Model

Natural ecosystems react to low biodiversity levels by exploiting unused or poorly used resources to increase biodiversity. Additionally, diversity and the life-span of plants help ecosystems use water and nutrients efficiently.

See Related Strategy

Two white, pink, yellow and green flowers and green plants

Biological Strategy

Nature Maintains Biodiversity

Ecosystems

Natural ecosystems react to low biodiversity levels by exploiting unused or poorly used resources to increase biodiversity.

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