Bacteria Could Help Stop Desertification

Bridgette Steffen writes "In attempt to slow down desertification, a student at London's Architectural Association has proposed a 6000 km sandstone wall that will not only act as a break across the Sahara Desert, but also serve as refugee shelter. Last fall it won first prize in the Holcim Foundation's Awards for Sustainable Construction, and will use bacteria to solidify the sandstone."

Comments

Specifics

[gcnaddict]

So basically, Bacillus Pasteurii will be used to actually turn the sand into sandstone instead of waiting for thousands of years or using other kinds of walls.

To be honest, the part which is more interesting is the fact that desertification will be stopped by using a wall. Sure, the Slashdot summary used bacteria as a hook, but in all honesty, the wall is more important than the bacteria anyway, which is why there's only a small mention of the bacteria in the source article.

Re:deserts move all the time

[Gravedigger3]

Perhaps because most of the times when man believes himself wiser than nature we end up learning different.

How will a wall help ?

[ianare]

A main part of the problem is that sand storms blow so much sand on surrounding grasslands, it kills the plants and spreads the desert. I don't see how a wall could help, unless it was kilometers high. It would need to stop this ?

Re:How will a wall help ?

[ianare]

Well they have the same problem with desertification in China, where the Gobi and 2 other smaller deserts are growing. Beijing gets regular sandstorms now because of this. It seems like mountains and yes, the Great Wall of China, has little effect in preventing these.

Re:How will a wall help ?

[evilviper]

It seems like mountains and yes, the Great Wall of China, has little effect in preventing these.

The great wall of China wasn't designed as a wind break. In fact it's in the worst possible location (right at the top of mountains), presenting the bare minimum of resistance to updraft airflow.

It's called "Bacterial cement"

[S3D]

Little googling revealed that bacteria could actually do it.
Bacterial cement However bacteria need nutrient (urine base btw) to do it. It may happens simple concrete could actually be cheaper.

Re:Details

[belmolis]

Actually, many scientists believe that the expansion of the Sahara desert is due to loss of vegetation due to over-grazing.

Re:Dune Grass in the PNW

[hairyfeet]

And here in Dixie we have "the weed that ate the south", also known as Kudzu. In the south it was introduced to stop soil erosion and now that crap is everywhere. Telephone poles, abandoned buildings, pretty much anything standing still ends up covered in Kudzu. If you look at pics like this ( which I have seen whole tracts of land, buildings and all, swallowed up like this) you see why we have to be careful about these great ideas of making the land better by introducing new elements like in TFA. What may help in the short term may turn seriously nasty in the long.

I mean just look at how far the Kudzu has spread, and as the neighboring states have a mild winter it won't take it long for the Kudzu to spread. And once that crap gets a foothold good luck getting rid of it. So while slowing down desert expansion is a nice idea and all, I would want to see some serious testing done on a smaller scale to make sure there isn't some "ooops" we haven't thought of.