Wall ‘could stop desert spread’

A plan to build a 6,000km-long wall across the Sahara Desert to stop the spread of the desert has been outlined.

The barrier – formed by solidifying sand dunes – would stretch from Mauritania in the west of Africa to Djibouti in the east.

The plan was put forward by architect Magnus Larsson at the TED Global conference in Oxford.

A 2007 UN study described desertification as “the greatest environmental challenge of our times”.

“The threat is desertification. My response is a sandstone wall made from solidified sand,” said Mr Larsson, who describes himself as a dune architect.

The sand would be stabilised by flooding it with bacteria that can set it like concrete in a matter of hours.

North African nations have promoted the idea of planting trees to form a Great Green Belt to prevent the spread of the sand.

A similar proposal – known as the Green Wall of China – has also been proposed to stop the spread of the Gobi Desert.

Ballooning idea

In 2007, the UN issued a report that said that one third of the Earth’s population – about two billion people – are potential victims of desertification.

It is concerned that the slow creep of the sands will displace people and put new strains on natural resources and societies.

Read more . . .

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Tags: bacteria, desertification, dune, environmental challenge, gobi desert, Innovation, magnus larsson, planting trees, sahara desert, sand dunes, sandstone wall

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 26th, 2009 at 8:29 am and is filed under BBC, Innovation, environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.