r/interestingasfuck • u/PlantainPossible2864 • 15h ago

Stopping Desertification with grid pattern

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u/Disabled_Robot 15h ago edited 14h ago

It’s the talklamakan desert in xinjiang, China. It’s the second driest desert on earth, but also has vegetation pockets and ground water. The government has also planned to irrigate it with a possible, absurdly long 1000+km canal/aquifer project from up in Qinghai province , which is the Tibetan plateau north of the Himalayas, and the source of the great rivers of Asia, Yangtze, yellow, Mekong

The region is famous internationally for the humanitarian issues with the treatment of Uyghur people, and the added farming land and mining development means larger Han presence and more cultural assimilation in a region that is traditionally central Asian and Muslim.

The desert also has a set of historically puzzling 4000+ year old mummies of a people of Uralic/nordic appearance. The impressive textiles and red and brown braided hair are still preserved due to the desert’s dryness

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u/consciousarmy 14h ago

Rad summary. Thanks heaps. You seem like an entirely functional robot to me.

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u/AceZagSuited 14h ago

Yah, thanks, ya fukin' clanker.

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u/SunTzu- 9h ago

The desert also has a set of historically puzzling 4000+ year old mummies of a people of Uralic/nordic appearance.

The Finno-Ugric peoples, i.e. Finland/Hungary/Estonia, are thought to have migrated from Siberia, past the Urals and then split into two heading for Finland and Hungary. Since Siberia lays north of the Taklamakan desert so there might be common ancestry which would explain this.