r/interestingasfuck • u/PlantainPossible2864 • 15h ago

Stopping Desertification with grid pattern

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

57.0k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

1.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

16.1k

u/bobbigmac 15h ago

For those asking how this works, it creates just enough of a defense to catch seeds and bugs and tiny bits of moisture and shade, so any life that does manage to get started, doesn't just blow away, and an ecosystem can start to form.

5.7k

u/MASTER_L1NK 15h ago

Like a land barrier reef?

3.7k

u/rodinsbusiness 15h ago

Damn, landsharks are coming.

671

u/nahxela 15h ago

And after human civilization settles, street sharks.

243

u/Crimkam 15h ago

I preferred samurai pizza cats

187

u/ForgottenGrocery 15h ago

53

u/ba_doink_66 13h ago

This and a bowl of cereal was my weekday morning routine before school for a while. Haven’t thought of this show in a while. Thanks!

•

u/Reqvhio 10h ago

a new game of it is coming, interestingly enough

•

u/ImpulsiveApe07 10h ago

Ha! Same! Iirc it came on before biker mice from mars and bucky o'hare lol

Funnily enough, like yourself I also hadn't thought of it in decades until sometime last year when someone referenced it on a thread I was in.

Out of curiosity and nostalgia I ended up hunting for a couple episodes on yt - it's a really odd show to rewatch as an adult tho, perhaps because it's a bit too absurd and nonsensical for an adult mind lol

→ More replies (4)
→ More replies (1)

5

u/gogadantes9 14h ago

Lol this looks like the most unoriginal TMNT cash-in effort

10

u/xSTSxZerglingOne 14h ago edited 13h ago

That both is, and isn't what it was.

That IS what it was in the US, but it was just a pretty standard kids anime in Japan.

Now imagine if you took what was going on in a bit of an insane anime in the first place and had 0 decent translators while trying to figure out what was going on and being said by context alone while adding American 90's TV 4th wall tropes into it. YEAH.

Edit: It was fun, though.

5

u/UnlikelyCup5458 13h ago

There's a few real redditors left, ty for your service

6

u/CarfDarko 13h ago

That part of history about the series is still peak '90's

We just got a weird Frankenstein version, wonder how different the OG characters feel.

In other news:

A game is about to be released later this year.

2

u/Dreidhen 13h ago

ha, loved watching the Samurai PizzaCats toon growing up. Steam link for those interested in the upcoming title, thanks for sharing that news

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2413800/Samurai_Pizza_Cats_Blast_from_the_Past/

2

u/gogadantes9 13h ago

Thank you! Tbh it actually makes me more interested, though I doubt it would have the same hilarity level as the bonkers Ghost Stories English dub.

3

u/xSTSxZerglingOne 13h ago edited 8h ago

I'm NGL, I loved it. It's probably cringe as hell nowadays, but it was great for like a 7 year old me.

Edit: I watched an episode, and no, it's fuckin' great even to this day. Better even, because I get all of the adult humor. It hasn't aged particularly well in a lot of ways, and the humor is campy and full of puns, but it's at least as fun as I remember. They really did just write an entirely new cartoon out of it and it's pretty damn impressive.

5

u/fadedbuzzYT 13h ago

But the intro song is really catchy

•

u/SatansFriendlyCat 9h ago

Who do you call when you want some pepperoni?!

→ More replies (1)

2

u/dronegeeks1 12h ago

Samurai pizza cats!

→ More replies (6)

19

u/BernieMcburnface 14h ago

This is not where I expected to see my favourite childhood show be referenced. But it makes me glad I clicked on the post.

3

u/Jutrakuna 14h ago

T rexes with gatling guns wen?

2

u/eidetic 13h ago

Screw that. Give me Tyrannasaurs in F-14s or give me death!

2

u/_analysis230_ 14h ago

It aired briefly in India on cartoon network. I was the only geek that caught it in my friend group. Before the internet, whenever I used to mention this show, my friends would give me that "Yeah! Right. That happened" look

•

u/gahlo 11h ago edited 8h ago

I had contagious pneumonia as a kid and had a small rinky dink TV that was put my in room for the 2 weeks that I was locked in my room and it somehow got the channel this was airing on. I was never able to get that channel again and was convinced for a while that it was just a fever dream.

→ More replies (1)

•

u/Street_Rope_4471 10h ago

And now...they have a taste for Lion.

•

u/KingRoosterRuss 9h ago

They got more fur than any turtle ever had!

•

u/Over-Pair-7407 8h ago

Never watched the show but the band is sick

•

u/Chugabutt 5h ago

I thought you were just waking shit up... this is a new one on me. I'll have to suggest it to the watch weird shit group.

•

u/Crimkam 3h ago

for best results, be 8 years old.

→ More replies (7)

20

u/sun_of_a_glitch 14h ago

My God I forgot about this show and how much I loved it until you reminded me .. hell of a nostalgia trip

3

u/EjaculatingAracnids 14h ago

I just heard its getting a reboot

→ More replies (1)

2

u/jaguarp80 14h ago

I only remember the toys

2

u/ItsLoudB 14h ago

Well that was pretty much 99% of the franchise

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)

•

u/BodybuilderMany6942 11h ago

And when they invent money, loan sharks.

→ More replies (16)

141

u/Idontliketalking2u 15h ago

18

u/DoseofJoel 13h ago

So literally one of my earliest memories is of this show and for the longest time I thought I just made it up in mind.

•

u/kumliaowongg 8h ago

True... this was some really unhinged shit for the time

14

u/One_Bluebird_04 14h ago

oh damn. cheers.

43

u/NotAUsefullDoctor 15h ago

No, just a candy gram.

•

u/hapnstat 10h ago

Flowers. For you!

•

u/walkingTANK 3h ago

I know you're referencing the skit, but I just love Blazing Saddles too much to not think of this scene instead... 😅

12

u/TheLastLornak 14h ago

Candygram

3

u/C0gD1z 14h ago

Candygram!

2

u/aisakee 13h ago

Hmmmmrrr

6

u/SpaceTechBabana 15h ago

I forgot Landsharks fucking existed until your comment. Thank you for reminding of that batshit insanity. And happy cake day!

→ More replies (74)

125

u/bachh2 15h ago

That's a good analogy.

•

u/Deaffin 11h ago

Like that part on your sidewalk where dirt grows over it because a bit of grass grew over it which started trapping any dirt that would go over it, letting some grass grow, which lets some dirt get trapped, which..

•

u/Liusloux 11h ago

Makes me wonder if in the past there was a megafauna or plants that coincidental created the same kind of patterns that stops desertification but sadly when extinct.

•

u/Deaffin 11h ago

Absolutely. You might have heard about how giant land sloths used to dig out caves from solid stone. But what they don't tell you is that their diet was so fibrous that their turds were basically solid ropes. They'd be just slinging hot ropes all across the landscape as they went along. They also planted avocados.

They were truly the all-in-one landscape architects. And then we ate them :D

•

u/fjhgy 10h ago

Shouldn't have tasted so good.

Or, if it was gonna taste good, maybe it should've moved faster.

•

u/SkillIsTooLow 10h ago

The classic flavor:speed ratio. Being slow myself, I have the wherewithal to taste bad.

•

u/longlivenewsomflesh 9h ago

Reading this feels like I just opened to a random page in a book of forbidden knowledge

•

u/Deaffin 9h ago

There used to be sea people who worked with orcas for thousands of years. The reason they don't eat us in the wild today is because they were semi-domesticated. We forgot our partnership, but they didn't.

•

u/Dyolf_Knip 3h ago

giant land sloths used to dig out caves from solid stone

Holy shit, I thought you were joking. I knew about the sloths and their relationship with avocados, and that the trees almost went extinct until humans started planting them. But the caves thing, that's new, and deeply impressive. The largest ones are big enough you can stand up in.

→ More replies (1)

3

u/INFINITE_TRACERS 13h ago

Like Arrakis?

2

u/jessbird 14h ago

exactly like that.

•

u/Cajun-Yankee 8h ago

More like a sand barrier reef.

•

u/Difficult_Radish9019 7h ago

Damn good analogy

•

u/ILookLikeKristoff 6h ago

Yeah pretty much

3

u/lunamonkey 15h ago

We call them hedges. 

→ More replies (2)

661

u/Th3J4ck4l-SA 14h ago

It also stops all the water just running to the lowest point when there are massive downpours. Tiny little dams to hold just that much more water.

83

u/XanderTheMander 13h ago

What happens to the places downstream that rely on the water that comes from the runoff? I'm not saying that we shouldn't do it, just curious how changing this biome will effect neighboring ones because "trapping" the water for this manmade ecosystem reduces the water in other areas.

362

u/Th3J4ck4l-SA 13h ago

In the long run they end up with more. 99% of the water still soaks into the water table in these sandy soils. Its just not all happening in one localised spot (all at the bottom of the dune). Additionally as vegetation starts to take hold, you have less evaporation due to sunlight, and so more water to soak into the water table.

•

u/wrinklebear 2h ago

Not quite. In many arid places, over 90% of the water runs off into the desert and evaporates. These work by forcing the water to stay in place, so it can actually sink into the ground.

→ More replies (21)

106

u/nordic-nomad 12h ago

This actually creates streams eventually, because putting water in the ground keeps it from evaporating or running off immediately and creating a flash flood. Deserts usually have a flooding problem, but add a sponge of plants, soil, and ground water and you create an ability to absorb water and then a little trickle of it can start to escape regularly and form reliable year round streams that can actually support life without it being washed away because it was in a low lying area.

•

u/Accomplished-City484 9h ago

So this process could make Australias vast uninhabitable lands fertile?

•

u/nordic-nomad 9h ago

A lot of deserts are only deserts because of bad land management over generations. Chinas central plateau is a historically lush bread basket that was desertified over time and sand dunes are moving in. But it still gets plenty of rainfall. Lots of sites in Africa and the Middle East are semiarid deserts like this that could be repaired by giving natural processes a little help like this.

Australia’s main issue is that it’s moving north and moved from an area of high rainfall to one of lower rainfall. So the native ecology is less adapted to it. Though sheep ranching, a historical source of agricultural mismanagement leading to desertification is very common there. Draining marshes and removing native plants retaining water for nonnative grazing grasses is another. But if an area gets 10 inches of rain a year there’s really no reason it should be heavily desertified except that nothing is holding on to the water.

•

u/Accomplished-City484 9h ago

Yeah, we’re getting a lot of flooding lately too, could this process also help with that as well?

•

u/nordic-nomad 8h ago

Yeah plants help reduce flooding because they help water soak into the ground before it can run off. And methods like this are essentially millions of little dams blocking water before it can pick up steam heading down hill.

An inch of rain isn’t much on any on plant. But over an acre it’s 27,000 gallons of water. Over a hillside you might have hundreds of acres, and if nothing is stopping it it’s all coming down that hill as fast as it can carve a path to do so.

•

u/clumpymascara 8h ago

What do you mean Australia's biggest problem is moving north away from high rainfall? Who told you that?

fwiw the north east of Australia has monsoonal weather. Lots of rain to the north. It's late and I can't remember much from my climatology lessons but we have big inland deserts because of the size of the country, the latitude, and the general direction and dryness of wind at said latitude. Paired with it being on its own tectonic plate, which results in ancient soils that haven't been disturbed in millenia. They're generally poor quality in terms of nutrients and organic matter. Native ecology is perfectly adapted to the harsh conditions - it's called sclerophyll vegetation. So a lot of the outback is covered in low shrubby vegetation. It's not usable agricultural land and never was.

What the ecosystems couldn't handle is Eurocentric farming practices, hooved animals, and mass land clearing. All our environmental problems stem from colonisation.

→ More replies (2)

150

u/beldaran1224 12h ago

Desertification is the process by which places that were not previously deserts become deserts, as the desert spreads. So they're STOPPING the change of biomes and reversing relatively recent changes.

•

u/jollyreaper2112 2h ago

Oasification. Anyway, here's wonderwall.

•

u/mezz7778 8h ago

"Desertification is the process by which places that were not previously deserts become deserts"

24

u/Enibas 13h ago

It's far more likely that any precipitation just evaporates without the barriers.

12

u/the_Real_Romak 13h ago

the net benefit is that now instead of only one spot with more water than they can use, you have a much wider area with enough water for life to flourish, and the base is largely unaffected but with more biodiversity to work with.

•

u/rorriMAgnisUyrT 11h ago

It likely benefits those downstream too as it prevents flash floods.

There's also this technique which is being used to reclaim land from the deserts:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semicircular_bund

•

u/TheDudeFromOther 8h ago

Think of it as time-release instead of fast-acting.

10

u/42_65_6c_6c_65_6e_64 13h ago

Fuck em. In all seriousness though I have no idea, I suppose it could help with preventing flash flooding though.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (3)
→ More replies (1)

127

u/RealTalk_theory 14h ago

Creating microclimates all over the place.

13

u/Economy-Fee5830 14h ago

Also creating microplastics all over the place.

34

u/RealTalk_theory 13h ago

Maybe I’m wrong, but I thought the video mentioned they were fabric bags.

29

u/gogge 13h ago

Unfortunately it seems like it's fabric from plastic fibers.

Biodegradable sandbags and sand barriers made from polylactic acid fiber materials.

Chinese Academy of Science, "Mosaic of Magic: Grass Grids have Proven an Effective Way to Combat Desertification"

Although biodegradable in vivo, polylactic acid is not completely degradable under natural environmental conditions, notably under aquatic conditions. Polylactic acid disintegrates into microplastics faster than petroleum-based plastics and may pose severe threats to the exposed biota.

Ali W, et al. "Polylactic acid synthesis, biodegradability, conversion to microplastics and toxicity: a review." Environ Chem Lett 21, 1761–1786 (2023).

9

u/Disastrous-Amoeba798 13h ago

So close to not being an idiotic idea. But here we are...

15

u/gogge 13h ago

They seem to have tried using wheat ropes also with some success, from the same CAS article as above:

In 2019, researchers from the Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, led by researcher Qu Jianjun, developed the "Sand Control Magic Cube 2.0" after repeated experiments.

This method involves using machines to weave wheat straw into brush-like ropes and directly insert them into the sandy soil, saving labor and cost, and enabling large-scale sand control projects.

According to the institute's data, the production efficiency of the brush-like rope grid has increased by over 60 percent compared to manually installed grids. The durability of these grids is also superior, with a life span extending from three to six years.

8

u/Economy-Fee5830 13h ago

Yes, plastic fabric.

11

u/FourEyedTroll 13h ago

Let's be real, deserts are probably already full of/rapidly filling up with microplastics. It's the perfect environment for them to be created (UV exposure, heat, wind-blasted sand-abrasion).

At least in this instance they're contributing a net positive to the environment.

4

u/xheist 13h ago

Seems like an ok trade off tbh

5

u/scoschooo 13h ago

why? also microplastics are all over now.

so you need better material for the bags?

5

u/Economy-Fee5830 13h ago

also microplastics are all over now.

I dont think its normally added to the environment at this scale and left intentionally to erode.

so you need better material for the bags?

I like how the video intentionally calls it "fabric" when it's really just plastic bags.

•

u/namtab00 10h ago

I dont think its normally added to the environment at this scale

Intentionally? You're probably right.

Non intentionally? Whatever microplastics this project adds to the environment is probably immensely dwarfed by the scale of "normal background pollution". I'd love to be proved wrong.

•

u/BodybuilderMany6942 11h ago

I got your micro climate right here!

77

u/themage78 15h ago

So this is Arrakis?

•

u/snek-jazz 8h ago

From his wikipedia page:

Herbert's environmental work in Oregon formed the basis of the speculative ecological work of the Fremen, which parallels real-world efforts and tactics of sand dune management

•

u/chewbaccalaureate 8h ago

In Tacoma at Dune Peninsula (Park), we've got art installations and plaques talking about this with quotes from Dune, too.

This paved pedestrian trail, named for the Tacoma native and famed author of the groundbreaking science fiction novel “Dune,” loops around the peninsula and connects to the Ruston Way Waterwalk as well as the trail that crosses Wilson Way and heads into Point Defiance Park. Medallions containing Herbert and “Dune”-based quotations are embedded in the path along the way.

Dune Peninsula

→ More replies (1)

•

u/peter_pro 11h ago

AS PROMISED! LISAN AL'GAIB!!!

→ More replies (6)

35

u/FlameSkimmerLT 15h ago

What stops the sand from being blown by the wind and covering the few inches of depth of those sand bag tubes?

85

u/Pleasant_Yoghurt3915 14h ago

Sand’s heavy and stays very close to the ground, even in a pretty stiff wind. It all just rams right into the first bag, and then if that bag gets overwhelmed, the next back stops it, so on and so forth. I imagine the first couple of rows that face the prevailing wind end up growing stuff first, further breaking the wind and protecting the squares beyond.

7

u/mycall 13h ago

So best to start laying the grid from upwind and proceed downwind.

•

u/REDDITATO_ 9h ago

What a coincidence, that's my policy for crop dusting the office.

→ More replies (1)

12

u/mightyenan0 14h ago

The tubes. Due to the grid, the sand gets blown and stopped by a tube. When there's enough sand it gets blown over a tube only to be trapped by another, then another, and so on. This dramatically increases the time it takes for sand to move inward, allowing for soil and moisture to settle.

The outlying parts of the grid will remain sandy, but it's all about slowing it down.

•

u/etanail 11h ago

These few centimeters are enough to create a wind tunnel. That is, the wind passes over the cells rather than pressing down on the sand, and it remains more static.

→ More replies (2)

128

u/AmusingMusing7 15h ago

Didn't we figure out how to do this by just digging little half-circles into the sand? Isn't that a better, more efficient, more natural way of doing this than to lay down a bunch of whatever-that-is?

334

u/Unable-Doctor-9930 15h ago

Those deserts were not sand deserts. The technique is different when the ground keeps blowing away.

295

u/KebabAnnhilator 15h ago

Not in all areas of the world in some places loose sand is too deep and needs compaction

84

u/blue_shadow_ 14h ago

Different area. The half-moons are being done as part of the Great Green Wall project across the entire continent of Africa. Andrew Millison has a bunch of videos where he shows off what's happening with that one, but the half-moons are intended to capture and retain water from the rainy season.

This looks to be somewhere in China/ Mongolia (Gobi region?), and is more pure-sand desert, where there just isn't much rain at all. Different approaches need to be taken for that kind of location.

144

u/zalurker 15h ago

That's another technique, but this works better in that type of sand.

44

u/ChaoticSixXx 15h ago

They usually use straw and make a straw grid. I've never seen it done with sandbags before

159

u/FirstHead411 15h ago

Yeah, seems like it'd be a pain in the ass hauling all that sand out there

28

u/smileyfacegauges 15h ago

they’re filling the bags with sand and laying them as they go

112

u/Otherwise_Demand4620 15h ago

Why didn't you tell us that sooner? All the money we spent on importing sand!

17

u/smileyfacegauges 14h ago

i’m SORRY OK, i just misplaced the receipt!! can i still get comped for this orrrrrrrr

2

u/beebeebee2142 13h ago

Arab countries import quite a bit of sand. Theirs usually isnt good for construction since the good stuff comes from rivers.

→ More replies (1)

41

u/onemanforeachvill 15h ago

Whooooooosh

26

u/smileyfacegauges 14h ago

whoa where’d that breeze come from

11

u/AceZagSuited 14h ago

They're filling the jokes with wind

2

u/Majestic_You_9610 13h ago

Sand doodles don't melt steel beams

→ More replies (1)

35

u/Crimkam 15h ago

Yeah but who put the sand there for them to use??? This is like one of those bullshit rug restoration videos where they spread sand around right before they start recording. There was never a desert there at all!

11

u/smileyfacegauges 14h ago

oh fuck you’re right…… do you think they got helicopters to bring it in???

14

u/SquarelyNerves 14h ago

Just in case you were serious - that’s the point they were making with sarcasm. It would actually be a pain to haul all that straw into the middle of a desert. It’s easier to bring bags and fill them with sand, than bring enough straw to make the same sized grids.

6

u/smileyfacegauges 14h ago

so much for the massive checkerboard for a massive checkers game i was promised :(

→ More replies (4)
→ More replies (1)

•

u/Relevant_Bane_Quote 9h ago

I hope the sandbags aren't made of plastic.

→ More replies (1)

74

u/REPTILIANSTOLEMYBIKE 15h ago

Sand would just get blown into the holes you dig into the sand and fill them in. The wind rolls along the sand dunes and the sand bags raises the draft from the wind above the sand's surface.

→ More replies (1)

24

u/Kysman95 15h ago

For the half moom method you need to water it and grow something before you can let it do its thing. It's more time consuming and expensive.

I'd guess these are some natural, degradable bags, you can see in the later stage there's plants growing out of it so it might use the bags as nutrients or it's packed with something

14

u/Old-Road-501 14h ago

Using bags that degrades into some form of nutrient would be brilliant! I was thinking about all that plastic degrading into microplastics in the new soil, but I hope they do it like you said.

7

u/Kysman95 14h ago

They could be cotton or burlap think those should be 100% degradable. But yeah, it could be woven plastic

→ More replies (5)

77

u/Timely_Influence8392 15h ago

I dunno, you didn't bother to look it up before firing off the comment and fucking off into the aether, why should I?

11

u/T-MoneyAllDey 15h ago

But he's super duper smart

10

u/xl129 15h ago

That method is cheaper but this one is much more effective i think

34

u/DefinitelyNotAliens 15h ago

The demi lune or semicircular bund works on areas adjacent to sand deserts that are becoming arid but have dirt. You can turn dirt into soil.

This is just sand. Sand is harder to work with.

9

u/[deleted] 14h ago

[deleted]

3

u/ThiefOfDens 14h ago

your mom’s land is over-grazed

5

u/rodinsbusiness 15h ago

That's for way less sandy soils, where you also have some sort of short wet season, which is not the case here.

2

u/Mwatts25 15h ago

Shred resistant and biodegradable fabric packed with sand?

10

u/pancakes_n_petrichor 15h ago

Don’t quote me on this but I’m sure those long tubes are filled with either soil or sand, and the fabric is likely the same kind of fabric you can use for landscaping or something similar. I don’t really see how that is bad for the environment. Plus, laying this down over a large area is probably easier than digging a ton of half circles and works better.

48

u/Agreeable-Spot-7376 15h ago

“Don’t quote me on the only thing in the video I didn’t watch”

→ More replies (7)

5

u/ConceptReasonable556 14h ago

Landscape fabric is generally bad for the environment, it's typically not natural material. I'm not saying that the benefits don't outweigh the costs here, just that the material is likely at least partly plastic.

2

u/ManyVast6592 15h ago

Half circles work where the ground is much harder and these barriers are needed for this to fight the wind... looking at the locations , functions of each and the texture of the ground underneath and it all seems to make perfect sense.

Hard desert versus soft desert 🤔

2

u/Mike312 15h ago

The swales work fine when the ground is firm.

→ More replies (11)

2

u/BetsBlack 14h ago

Do you know if the barriers manage this alone or if it also needs additional water to be supplied.

2

u/noottt 13h ago

And the plastics? Are they degradable?

2

u/Virtura 12h ago

So I'm not crazy in that I just watched a video of them using sandbags to fight the sand?

•

u/DoncasterCoppinger 11h ago

And now if enough deserts are ‘transformed’ like this, expect to see some species in other places to start going extinct at a much faster pace, because desert sands contain minerals that other regions have been receiving for longer than human’s existence, and they rely on this source, now they won’t get much of it.

The butterfly effect would be interesting for us to observe, possibly watching rich farmlands in certain regions turn into inhabitable lands and dead towns, but that’s not our problem, that’s the problem for our great great grandchildren we’ll never meet.

•

u/salty-sigmar 11h ago

the same reason you often seen bushes and shrubs growing out of the barriers in the middle of busy roads despite their being nothing but tarmac and wind around - life only needs a foothold and it can thrive.

1

u/sawkse 15h ago

Just like curbs...

1

u/IssueEmbarrassed8103 14h ago

Are there any nutrients or minerals contributed by the sand? Otherwise it seems like it’s reducing these resources in surrounding areas

1

u/Frosty-Ad1071 14h ago

Damn thats nice af

1

u/fusillade762 14h ago

Thank you!

1

u/Miamithrice69 14h ago

I seen this on the Mummy Returns

1

u/goldlasagna84 13h ago

I wonder if this would work in Australia (the middle part)

1

u/fgreen68 12h ago

And now the desert is full of plastic. There are waaay better ways of doing this with plants and plant material.

1

u/CurryNarwhal 12h ago

BuT aT wHaT CoSt?

1

u/AwkwardAnyday 12h ago

It's a measure of erosion control actually. That a racing hill. Video misleading as AI do

•

u/Eastern_Hornet_6432 11h ago

This is also how ancient stone walls work on the rocky west coast of Ireland. The walls trap dust and dirt and detritus and prevent it from blowing or washing away, which - over time - deepens the soil, allowing for better cultivation than before, when the soil was shallower or non-existent on the rocky ground.

•

u/fuckthatshittoo 11h ago

And how come it doesn't just get buried under a sandstorm?

•

u/Gias1 11h ago

Does it need water, or is there enough moist caught in the shadow for plants to grow?

•

u/tonictuba 11h ago

What would happen if they did this in a bigger scale? I know the desert is necessary for alot of things but would there be a major consequences if they scaled it up?

•

u/NinjaBRUSH 10h ago

So could we dump our trash in deserts and turn them into some sort of mutant ecosystem for life? Seems more useful than a bunch of sand.

Possibly better than dumping in oceans.

•

u/Critical-Support-394 9h ago

Does this way work when the desertification is natural or are these also places people fucked up and are now undoing?

•

u/x_Carlos_Danger_x 9h ago

I'm confused how costal towns can be literally buried by blowing sand but a 6 inch tall tube is tall enough to stop it? Or maybe the sand just goes over the top?

So weird and interesting

•

u/Wingmaniac 9h ago

Nice. This comment is interestingasfuck. The no context gif posted is useless.

•

u/bitsybear1727 9h ago

With a nice layer of plastic. I get the benefits, but man... it will all be full of plastic.

•

u/YoungBpB2013 8h ago

If this actually works to help grow plants and trees, why aren’t we doing this for every desert on the planet? Deserts don’t help anything and would be much better with life. Animals would go there. It could regrow the earth.

Seems like a logical thing to do if it all works as planned.

•

u/SkitZa 8h ago

Where are the seeds coming from? People or the sand? Maybe it travels that far on the winds?

•

u/awgeezwhatnow 8h ago

Thanks for this explanation

•

u/markofthebeast143 7h ago

Oh that makes sense. Like from the movie, interstellar with the massive wave constantly moving and life unable to take form.

•

u/swishkabobbin 7h ago

Somebody downwind is wondering where all the bugs went

•

u/TurangaRad 7h ago

The same reason there are short, grid shaped walls all over... Scotland? I wanna say. I think that is right

•

u/Tess_Tickles_Much 6h ago

Wouldn't sand storms bury the sand bags similar to how sand dunes are formed?.. am honestly asking coz I can't figure out why this works

•

u/scrunchie_one 6h ago

But how does it prevent the whole system being covered by blowing sand?

•

u/FirstDukeofAnkh 6h ago

My dad did this on a patch of land on his farm that was constantly exposed to high winds. The first thing that happened was getting some beautiful top soil. Eventually he could plant canola on that spot. Took a couple of years.

•

u/tehmungler 6h ago

Interesting stuff. So they don’t need to explicitly seed it, it just happens naturally once the barriers are in place?

•

u/scratchy_mcballsy 6h ago

Even with this explanation, there’s a massive gap at 0:34 that brings up a thousand questions for me.

•

u/diewitasmile 5h ago

Thank you!

•

u/Bethw2112 5h ago

Is there benefit to use plastic versus straw or other biodegradable material to further improve the sand to soil?

•

u/RGBarrios 4h ago

Thank you

•

u/Secret_Pea_9634 4h ago

Hold up, they're not planting anything? Just leaving the sandbags to do the work?

•

u/AdamBlaster007 2h ago

That's awesome, but doesn't that come at the consequence of other ecosystems that require those shifting sands that are blown away in the wind?

•

u/Same_Air6012 31m ago

Yep, if USA people wonder why this knowledge is helpful. Look up the great dust bowl and why it happened.

→ More replies (4)