The main idea is Hedgerows and Fodder.
To Terraform or Earth Change the Arabian Desert is a huge project. Theron Horticulture via project Flora2Fauna will try and spell out all the pros and cons for prospective investors and make projections including financial as well as possible pitfalls that may arise. Lets take a look at the history of the Arabian Desert first.
Did you know that the vast desert occupying much of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula used to be lush jungles? Several chapters of the Quran narrate anecdotes of lands that turned from lush gardens with rivers into arid deserts after its people sinned. It turns out that these stories are not as metaphorical as we thought.
Early human communities lived in the congested area of the Nile Valley almost 6000 BCE. At one point, many of those inhabitants moved to Asia and from there into the rest of the world.
The lush vegetation and freshwater pools – located in what we call today the Empty Quarter, or Rubh’ Al Khali, the world’s largest desert enclaved by Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, and the UAE – started attracting animals like elephants, rhinos, hippos, and crocodiles.
The monsoon rains that rejuvenated the once-arid soil persisted for a couple of millennia until it seized about 7,300 to 5,500 years ago, coinciding with the beginning of the Ancient Egyptian civilization, to which most of the desert inhabitants returned.
The rain stopped relatively abruptly within the span of about 300 years, so the soil started drying slowly. It wasn’t until around 1,100 years later that it reached its current arid state.
Scientists from NASA believe that the monsoon rains retreated due to a change in the Earth’s axis from 24.1 degrees to the current 23.5 degrees, exposing the region’s land to more direct sunlight.
The wobble occurred in response to gravitational forces from other bodies in the solar system and is likely to happen again as the tilt continues on changing about 22 and 25 degrees every 41,000 years, according to scientific estimates.
Scientists predict that climate cycles that turn the desert green are bound to happen again in the region.
For the first time, the technical expertise of scientists in varied disciplines including paleontology, geochronology, and mapping is being combined to take a holistic look at the role played by Saudi Arabia in the African exodus.
Recent finds are overturning long-held theories by moving them from the periphery right to the center.
According to Prince Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, the first Arab to go into space and currently head of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage, the multidisciplinary team has uncovered evidence that our human ancestors’ first steps out of Africa were made 50,000 years earlier than was commonly believed.
“The Arabian Peninsula has witnessed dramatic changes in climate,” he says.
“In the middle Pleistocene, this encouraged early man to make for the then-green peninsula as his destination.”
Recently, human footprints were discovered in Saudi Arabia that was 120,000 years old in the Nefud Desert. We do believe this region was the start of humanity.
To the right, you can clearly see where rivers used to flow. All we have to do is plant and grow tough desert plants to change the desert climate and recreate a garden of Eden.
Understanding the prevailing weather and winds over the Saudi Arabian desert.
Rainfall throughout the Arabian desert averages less than 4 inches (100 mm) a year but can range from 0 to 20 inches (0 to 500 mm). Interior skies are usually clear except for intermittent winter rains, spring hazes, or dust storms.
The climate is typically hot and arid, with temperatures ranging between 14–35°C in southern areas, dropping to 5–21°C at higher altitudes around St. Catherine. Annual precipitation varies between 5–200 mm across the region.
Soils
Mechanical weathering, which physically breaks down coarse particles into finer grains, is the most significant process in the formation of desert soils. Quartz sand abounds, covering more than a third of the desert surface. Granular debris from the Precambrian crystalline basement forms pebbly fans about the bases of hills. Sands and silts are washed down to lower levels and are then winnowed out by winds. Fine materials grade down to silt. Smaller particles, such as clays, rarely form. Limestone, when pulverized, forms silt-sized dusts. Waterborne silts eventually are deposited in khabari, or silt flats.
Because the soils have proved to be fertile, irrigated silt flats are farmed. Najd villages that once depended on November rains to raise their winter wheat now irrigate and farm year-round; but overgrazing near government-provided wells has led to serious deterioration of rangeland in the Najd. The valleys and lower slopes of the Yemen and Asir highlands are extensively terraced for soil and water conservation and produce many crops, of which coffee is important in local markets. Those soils are derived from crystalline rocks of high mineral content. Salt flats in the desert—though too salty for many crops—can be cultivated if they are irrigated and drained properly. In addition, many plants, called halophytes, grow in saline soils. The date palm thrives on salty soils if properly irrigated and drained.
Desert dune sands are generally dry but can hold rainfall to depths of three feet (one metre) or more, thus nourishing xerophytes (plants adapted to survive under arid conditions). Shrubs unique to the area, called ʿabl and ghaḍā, send out long, shallow roots to catch the slightest bit of moisture. The roots of those plants make good firewood.
Plant life
There is a great variety of desert flora. Plants are primarily xerophytic (structurally adapted to a limited water supply) or halophytic (salt-tolerant). After spring rains, long-buried seeds germinate and bloom in a few hours. The normally barren gravel plains turn green. Even chert plains produce late-winter and early-spring grazing for camels and sheep. The plains were once the home of the famed Arabian horse, but grazing was always too poor to support a large horse population. Certainly all of the grazing areas were overgrazed, thus contributing to the formation of the present widespread barren tracts. The halophytes growing on the saline flats include many succulents and fibrous plants that can be eaten by camels. Sedge, which grows in sandy areas, is a tough plant with deep roots that help to hold down the soil. Tamarisk trees are often found on the borders of oases, where they help to prevent the encroachment of sand.
Flowering plants in central Arabia include examples of the convolvulus, mustard, pea, daisy, caper, iris, and milkweed families. Those plants produce seeds in the cooler months, when the annuals go through their entire life cycle.
The rare shrub rāq, or arāq, is known as the “tooth-brush bush,” because its twigs traditionally are used by Arabs to polish their teeth. Many herbs grow throughout the desert and are well known to the Bedouin, who use them for seasoning, preserving food, perfuming clothing, and washing hair. Shrubs that yield the fragrant frankincense and myrrh are found in the lower elevations of the Dhofar region of Oman. The eastern Rubʿ al-Khali, generally thought to be dry and barren, supports much plant life on the flanks of giant dunes, including a sweet grass called naṣī that provides the main forage for the now-rare oryx (a species of African antelope).
There are no cacti in the Old World, except for those imported from the Americas. One of those imports, the prickly pear, thrives and is fed to livestock. Moreover, its fruit is eaten by people. Spiny and thorny plants also are common, including euphorbias, plants with milky juice and flowers with no petals that grow in Hejaz, and camel thorns, found everywhere. Acacia trees were once abundant in the Ṭuwayq Mountains, but the demand for charcoal decimated them. The few growing in wadis and gardens provide welcome shade. Junipers reach great size in the highlands of Asir and Yemen. Their trunks are cut into the beams and pillars that characterize the region’s architecture. The milkweed tree (ishar) grows to a height of 20 feet (6 metres) in Wadi Al-Bāṭin and is common in the wadis of Najd and in Wadi Bīshah.
Date palms, of which there are numerous varieties, are grown in many oases, with the dates themselves providing food for humans and livestock. Palms also supply wood for building and for making water-well frames and pulley shafts of ancient type; their fronds are used for handicrafts and for thatching roofs. The oases also produce many fruits and vegetables such as rice, alfalfa, henna (a shrub that yields a reddish orange dye), citrus, melons, onions, tomatoes, barley, wheat, and—in higher regions—peaches, grapes, and prickly pears.
Animal life
The region’s animal life is varied and unique. Desert insects include flies, malaria-carrying Anopheles mosquitoes, fleas, lice, roaches, ants, termites, beetles, and mantids (predatory insects that camouflage themselves as leaves, twigs, or pebbles). lso found are the scavenging dung beetle, myriads of butterflies, moths, and caterpillars, and the pestiferous locust that once plagued the landscape but has now been brought under control.
Arachnida (a class of segmented invertebrates) include large sapulgids (scorpion-killers), scorpions, ticks, and spiders. Sapulgids grow to 8 inches (20 cm) in length. Scorpions also range up to eight inches and are coloured black, green, yellow, red, and off-white. The scorpion’s painful sting is deadly to small children.
Pools in oases contain small fish. There are a few amphibious animals, such as newts, salamanders, toads, and frogs. Reptiles include lizards, snakes, and turtles. The dab (or dabb), a fat-tailed lizard, lives on the plains and reaches a length of up to three and a half feet (more than one metre). It is a vegetarian with toothless jaws, and its tail, roasted, is a Bedouin delicacy. The monitor lizard reaches lengths up to three feet (nearly one metre) and feeds on locusts and other insects. Many lizards, including skinks, geckos, agamids, and collared lizards, are found in the sand. Lively and pretty, a salmon-coloured lizard, the dammūsa seeks the black beetle for food and literally dives and swims in the slipfaces of the sand dunes. An agamid lizard (ṭuḥayḥī) scurries across the sand with its tail coiled like a watch spring, uncoiling when it stops.
Among the snakes, all of which are feared by most Arabs, the sand cobra—relative of the sea snake—is slim, sand-coloured, and venomous. Vipers abound in sand and rocks but, being nocturnal, are seldom seen in the heat of day.
Birds of the Arabian Desert include local species as well as migrant groups from northern Europe, Africa, and India. The local birds breed from late winter to early spring. Many of the young display excellent camouflage. Bifasciated (striped) larks, sand grouse, Arabian coursers, and lesser bustards live in the desert year-round, as do several falcons, eagles, and vultures. The peregrine falcon is seen in Asir, saker and lanner falcons (a brown falcon with a golden cap) are found in Najd and eastern Saudi Arabia, and the kestrel is everywhere. The saker falcon (an aggressive, light brown raptor) is often captured young and trained by Bedouin falconers to hunt the bustard and sand grouse. Ravens in pairs or flocks may appear anywhere. Three eagle species are known—white-tailed, golden, and tawny eagles. Vultures were more numerous when camels were in greater use. The largest, a black species with a wingspread of up to 9 feet (2.7 metres), has nearly disappeared. The Egyptian vulture (al-rakhamah), a medium-sized white-and-black bird with yellow markings, is widely distributed. The lammergeier (bearded vulture) lives in Asir and Yemen. There also are several owls, among which a burrowing species is common.
Migrant birds follow several flyways, one through the central Najd and others on each coast. Water and shore birds migrate in fall and spring between northern Europe and the tropics. Bee eaters, warblers, babblers, carrion kites, swallows, martins, swifts, wheatears, shrikes, larks, flycatchers, hoopoes, and some exotic species may be seen alone, in pairs, or in flocks. Cranes, herons, flamingos, ducks, and small wading birds feed on shores and in the intermittent lakes. The Syrian ostrich (Struthio camelus syriacus), which was once abundant in the sand deserts, has been extinct in Arabia since the early 1940s.
Mammals were numerous before people began hunting them from motor vehicles. Gazelles roamed the plains in herds of hundreds before World War II and afterward almost became extinct, until the Saudi government began to regulate hunting and established wildlife preserves. The Arabian, or white, oryx (Oryx leucoryx), which had nearly disappeared by 1960, was reintroduced after having been bred in captivity. The Nubian ibex (Capra nubiana), a cliff-dwelling species of wild goat, has also shown signs of recovery after its numbers were decimated.
In desert plains ratels (badgerlike carnivores), foxes (notably fennecs), and civets live in territorial isolation. Hyenas live wherever sheep are herded, preferring escarpments that provide cover. Jackals also are seen, especially at dusk when they seek water. There are hares, as well as golden sand rabbits. Small rodents include jerboas, mice, rats, and porcupines, while small hedgehogs are found among rocks. Troops of baboons roam in Asir.
Required steps of the project
The Cost of Terraforming the Arabian Desert
Looking at only Saudi Arabia, their annual GDP was 833.5 billion USD (2021). By reforesting the Arabian Desert, Saudi Arabia can easily become the bread basket of the world.
Project Scope and Details:
Annual Budget is 1% or $8.335 Billion.
- Flatten sand dunes where ever possible for flat agricultural land. The main cost of the annual project budget.
- Survey the land and plot out 40-acre lots.
- Survey the land and plot out roads for farmers to use. Make the roads.
- Grow bamboo (hedgerows) for distribution to all farms. Ship it directly to the farmers for immediate planting.
- Grow fodder in warehouses. Ship it to directly to the farmers.
- Farmers must sign up on the Arabian Desert Flora2Fauna website or app to request agricultural products or notify when crops have been harvested. Shipments to and from strategically placed (100 km radius) storage and growth facilities and warehouses.
How to make drinking and horticultural-friendly water
Desalination Plants:
To accomplish our goal to make the Arabian Desert an oasis again, we will need reverse osmosis plants or desalination plants.
Since the Arabian Desert is surrounded on 3 sides by oceans (the Red Sea in the west, the Arabian Sea to the south, and the Persian Gulf to the east), we can build these plants to remove salt from the seawater and pump it inland for drinking and irrigation purposes. Installing check valves will prevent water in the pipes from flowing back to the sea.
To do this, these plants will need a lot of electricity, and Flora2Fauna will partner with Theron Technologies to purchase their industrial size neodymium magnet generators.
Theron Technologies
To produce permanent electricity in all the Reverse Osmosis and/or Desalination Plants throughout the outer rim of the Arabian Desert, Flora2Fona will partner with Theron Technologies to buy these industrial-size generators. This will allow us to remove the salt from the seawater and pump it inland.
Theron Technologies are manufacturing permanent magnet generators in both industrial size and mobile trailer sizes. These generators run quietly and have zero emissions because they are perpetual energy generators and do not require a fuel source or energy source to operate.
With all these facts and 1% of the country's GDP, we can Terraform the Arabian Desert in as little as 2-5 years.
To contact us, please use the information below:
Cornelius Theron – Program Director Flora2Fauna
Signal Encrypted # 561-853-6892
Email support@theronhorticulture.com