Here is how Saudi Arabia is Transforming the Desert into Green Area
Saudi Arabia is the 14th biggest nation in terms of land area with a colossal 2 million square kilometers. However, the majority of the kingdom—95 percent—is a scorching desert with a ton of sand. Additionally, it is one of the few nations without even a single permanent river. The yearly average rainfall in this location is less than 150 mm. You will, however, see unexpectedly large amounts of arable land.
Saudi Arabia is peppered with a network of farmlands where agriculture thrives, allowing farmers to harvest a variety of fruits, which is unusual in the scorching desert. The majority of the farmlands are circular. The country contains 35,000 square kilometers of arable land, which is greater than the Netherlands and three times the size of Qatar. However, in the early 1960s, Saudi Arabia only possessed 400 square kilometers of fertile land. How did the oil-rich country increase its arable land so quickly?
Saudi Arabia may have many sand dunes, but this was not always the case. Around 10,000 years ago, Arabia experienced a major increase in rainfall, as well as the spread of lakes and flora that supported human settlements over the peninsula. However, throughout the millennia that followed, a sequence of catastrophic droughts caused significant environmental alterations. Humans would adapt and continue to live in the sandy region. There was human settlement in the Jubbah oasis throughout the 'Dark Millennium,' a dry era lasting from around 5,900 to 5,300 years ago during which much of Arabia is assumed to have been uninhabitable.
In other parts of northern Arabia, humans built fences around oases, and landscape features to catch runoff, and began digging wells. While water is sparse on the surface, Saudi Arabia is home to underground water reserves known as aquifers. This is analogous to the kingdom's position over vast quantities of crude oil. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, has been pumping water from underground for years. The majority of the water has gone to agriculture, where large-scale irrigation has allowed for planting and harvesting. However, there is one issue with pumping water from underground. Aquifers can run dry, especially when large-scale irrigation is used, as Saudi Arabia has done.
Saudi Arabia imported technologies to preserve water, and it has made a significant effect. Center pivot irrigation is the technology. What exactly is center pivot irrigation and where did it originate? In 1948, a forward-thinking Nebraska farmer called Frank Zybach invented the center pivot sprinkler system, which he patented in 1952. Center-pivot irrigation entails employing an automated irrigation system to water crops in a circular manner around a center pivot. This explains why the farmlands are symmetrical.
The main component is a long radial pipe supported by sprinkling towers. These towers swivel around the mechanism's central axis. The radial pipe itself is made up of evenly distributed nozzles that deliver water to the surrounding crops. Water is delivered consistently from the nozzles as the pipe spins, providing nutrients to the crops. Water moves in a straight line down the field utilizing the radial pipe system of center pivot irrigation. The pipe's nozzles all have the same flow rate and cover the same area. This helps to guarantee that the water sprayed on the crops is consistent.
Depending on the length of the pipe attached, center-pivot irrigation systems may cover up to 130 acres in a straight system and approximately 155 acres in a swing-arm system. As a result, the technique is appropriate for large-scale agriculture. The sprinklers positioned near the pivot tend to cover a lesser area than the nozzles located at the end of the pivot due to the design of this system. The pivot point, around which the entire mechanism revolves, is one of the essential components of a center pivot irrigation system. It is the point at which water first enters the pivot pipes. It also houses another critical component, the control panel.
The gear that allows the farmers to operate the machines is housed in the control panel. This is the setup's brain, from which the farmer may start and stop the machine, as well as alter direction and modes of operation, such as dry and wet running. There are various varieties of center-pivot irrigation control panels available today. Farmers may choose between simple and complex digital panels based on their budget and needs.
The drive tower or drive unit, which is part of the equipment that contacts the ground and houses the accompanying hardware that allows the system to move, is another component. It is typically made up of wheels, a base beam, a drive train, and other critical structural elements. The tower box also controls the drive unit, causing the entire machinery to move in the correct direction and for the needed period. Farmers may simply distribute water equally across enormous areas of farmland with center-pivot irrigation. It also significantly minimizes the amount of work required during harvest season.
This overcomes two problems: high labor prices and inconsistency of farmhands. This watering approach also helps to save a lot of energy in the long term. Furthermore, it is recognized to be significantly more efficient in terms of water usage. It aids in the prevention of water runoff and significantly reduces farmers' water expenses. Furthermore, adopting this technology allows farmers to better monitor the water levels on their land. The semi-automatic aspect of this system, along with the lateral movement of the sprinklers, makes it easier for farmers to manage water levels.
The efficiency of water application in center pivot irrigation is over 80%, which is significantly greater than older approaches. A central irrigation system is extremely adaptable since it can irrigate almost any sort of crop grown by a farmer. The same mechanism may then be used to apply fertilizer, insecticides, and other fluids. The center pivot irrigation technology is used in approximately two-thirds of all irrigated lands in Saudi Arabia. This has aided in the conversion of many acres of land into intensively irrigated agricultural land. The government's encouragement and assistance for farmers to contribute to the country's food supply helped to this transformation.
Due to their usage of various water quality standards, Saudi Arabian farmers first complained of severe corrosion in the lateral pipework of center-pivot irrigation systems. Many farms have switched out lateral, expensive steel pipes for corrosion-resistant polyethylene pipes to address the issue. Short drop tubes-equipped polyethylene laterals were placed directly underneath the common steel pipe, 150–200 cm above the ground. Farmers started this change without even contacting the center pivot dealers and designers who rely on a fixed pressure for each sprinkler, instead using information from their own experience and technicians.
The center pivot irrigation owners change this every three to five years, depending on the salinity of the water. Over 85% of the water used in the country in 1992 came from non-renewable groundwater reserves, which supplied roughly 92 percent of the irrigation water. As a result, the number of center pivot irrigation systems in Saudi Arabia significantly grew. Despite its effectiveness, the center pivot irrigation method cannot fix the issue. Actually, all it did was put off the problems. Due to the expansion in irrigated land, Saudi Arabia's water supply was significantly strained, which led to issues with availability.
A startling 500 cubic kilometers or 120 cubic miles of water, enough to fill Lake Erie in the United States, lay beneath the desert when intense modern farming began. However, in recent years, the farms were using up to 5 cubic miles (21 cubic kilometers) of yearly water. Rains replace very little of it since there are almost none. Saudi Arabia was on course to exhaust at least 96 cubic miles (400 cubic kilometers) of its aquifers by 2008, according to extraction rates described in a 2004 research from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. According to experts, four-fifths of the Saudis' "fossil" water has already disappeared.
In more recent times, Saudi Arabia has seen portions of its lush territory turn into a dry desert. This happened at Al Baydha, which is located roughly 20 kilometers south of Mecca. The issue was that the locals, known as the Beduin tribes, were forced by law to congregate in one place, which changed the natural pasture and led to overgrazing and its gradual demise. The once-fertile region became a stony desert as a result of the people cutting down trees for charcoal. The lack of seasonal rainfall caused flash floods that rolled into the Red Sea rather than sinking into the soil to replenish supplies, necessitating the need for deeper wells to get water. The administration then asked Harvard University bioethicist and futurist Mona Hamdy and Stanford University permaculturist, Neil Spackman, to try to undo the alteration. From 2010 until 2018, Spackman resided in Al Baydha with the locals. To collect rainfall, he created rock terraces, check dams, and opened swales in the ground
Packman and Hamdy employed old Incan and Nabatean water-conservation practices to control seasonal floods and train water to flow. In 2012, the effort shifted to planting drought-resistant plants, and by 2015, Packman and Beduin had planted 4000 trees of 10 different varieties. The majority of the trees died, but enough grew to provide fair hope for a green environment that would provide feeding for bees and animals, windbreak, seeds from which to extract oil, and soil improvement through nitrogen fixation. When financing was cut off, the project was put on hold for several years. However, when the rain returned, the trees blossomed once again. Perhaps one day, Al Baydha's success will be reproduced throughout Saudi Arabia, and the entire kingdom will bloom with plant life.
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