Proposed method to eliminate desertification and making the desert a great place to work and live in

1. Taking back the
desert
Proposed method to
eliminate desertification and
making the desert a great
place to work and live in

2. Requirements:
 Lots of drinkable water.
 A stable geotechnical platform to construct
residential houses, roads and infrastructure
on.
 Workplaces and electricity.
 Preventing the always moving desert from
engulfing the constructed areas.
 Funding for such a project.
Ever wondered how the vast deserts can be
made habitable?

3. Since ANY engineering challenge can be
overcome with sufficient financial back-up, this
bullet point should be listed as the first
requirement.
But why not approach the challenge from and
environmental and recycling perspective?
Surely the material cost could be reduced by
using suitable recycled material?
Lets look at each of the other obstacles in
more detail.

4. SEA WATER TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM 1
 Most of the water supply from rivers has
already been either allocated or pretty much
used up.
 Desalination plants are extremely expensive.
Why not use the abundant sun energy
available in the desert to fuel the conventional
water evaporation process, in order to purify
sea water?

5. SEA WATER TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM 2
Lets first overcome the challenge to get the sea
water from sea to land.
 A cheap sustainable solution would be to use
discarded 2 liter PET soda bottles (used to
manufacture Coke bottles around the world).
 Connect the soda bottles to each other in a
specific way to produce a continuous helix.
 Combine 16 off these helixes to form the shape
of a hollow cylinder.
 Then turn the cylinder using electrical motors
powered from solar panels.

6. SEA WATER TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM 3
One helix turned 3 times – 3D view

7. SEA WATER TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM 4
16 off helixes forming a cylinder

8. SEA WATER TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM 5
Electrical driving system

9. SEA WATER TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM 6
External support system – made mostly from
500ml plastic soda bottles and reinforcing

10. SEA WATER TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM 7
Roof added (composed of recycled 500ml soda cans)
– to protect the helix from direct sunlight and provide
support for solar panels

11. SEA WATER TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM 8
Section through complete system

12. SEA WATER TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM 9
 If this transportation system is able to complete a full
turn every 5 seconds, then it is estimated to provide
about 3 million liters of sea water in a 24 hour cycle.
[The proposed evaporation process will follow shortly].

13. LAND RECLAMATION PROCESS 1
 Survey basically the entire desert landscape.
 Calculate the mean level to which the sand
dunes should be levelled out in order to
create an even top surface.
 Level out each sand dune (starting from the
sea shore) using a special string of rotating
excavators at the base of the sand dune.
 The rotating excavators will be moved back
and forwards while running on supporting
guides at the ends.

14. LAND RECLAMATION PROCESS 2

15. LAND RECLAMATION PROCESS 3
 Use recycled HDPE plastic products to mold standardized
hexagonal floor panels and covers – see following
pictures. HDPE plastic is one of the easrier plastics to –
remold.
 Cut any type of non-organic material (mostly plastics) into
fine pieces, then heat the matrix until the plastic parts
reaches melting point. Mold this into a doughnut shape
and press it to the desired height before the plastic sets
again.
 Assemble the molded parts together on top of the sand
layer in order to form a platform.
 This platform will then serve to prevent the sand from
blowing away and can then be used to support modular
single-storey houses, etc., since the load-carrying
capacity of loose sand is rated around 100kPa.

16. LAND RECLAMATION PROCESS 4

17. LAND RECLAMATION PROCESS 5

18. LAND RECLAMATION PROCESS 6

19. LAND RECLAMATION PROCESS 7

20. LAND RECLAMATION PROCESS 8
NOTE: TOP COVER REMOVED FOR CLARITY PURPOSES

21. WATER PURIFICATION 1
 A sand dune can then be shaped into a half-moon
shape and covered with the molded panels. The
steep face of the dune must face to the North (in
Southern hemisphere) and lined with reflector panels
that can be swiveled to follow the sun’s path.
 The sunlight will then be focused onto a small area in
order to heat the sand (or most suitable natural
material) inside a cylindrical container to above
100°C.
 This will cause the water inside the buried glass
pipelines (or most suitable material) to produce
steam, which can then be tapped off and cooled
down to form a stream of purified water.
 The remaining brine waste can then be removed and
processed into a variety of products (saltcrete,
Epsom salt, etc).

22. WATER PURIFICATION 2
 The unusable part of the brine can then also be
stored in a dry state inside the hexagonal floor
panels.
 If enough steam pressure can be generated, a
small electrical generator can be driven to create
additional electricity.
 The purified water can then be cleaned further
by running the water through a filtering stage
using the required charcoal filters, sieves etc.

23. WATER PURIFICATION 3

24. KEEPING THE DESERT OUT
At the outskirts of the project a sand dune can be shaped to
the desired configuration and covered with the plastic
molded panels. Then a suitable sand catchment sieve can
be constructed at the top of the sand dune that will collect
most of the blown sand. The collected sand can then be
channeled to the bottom of the sand dune and then
transported to the most appropriate area for dumping.

25. SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPACT 1
If this concept can be made to work, then imagine the
socio-economic impact it could have on countries that have
suitable deserts, if the following simple social model is
followed:
1. Construct the first phase of the project in order to get
the project self-sufficient and provide housing for
enough inhabitants to maintain the system.
2. The type of person that will first be liable to apply for
membership to the program is the type of homeless
person with a strong ambitious personality.
3. Successful applicants will then have to work on the
project for at least 6 months, for a suitable salary.
4. This way mostly homeless and/or jobless people will
be able to apply, since the time away from work for a
minimum salary owner will not make it a viable for him.

26. SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPACT 2
5. Thereafter the person receives the plans and material
to construct a suitable home on the reclaimed land.
This will then also become his new home.
6. During the 6 month working period the person
accumulates enough working hours on each of the
facets of the relocation project that he may qualify to
permanently work on any of the disciplines after the 6
months period.
7. If he does not complete the 6 month “trial” period
adequately, then that person would not be allowed to
continue on the program, since he indicated that he is
not willing to work to earn his living.
8. Since the operating system is extremely simple to
understand, it would not required that the person should
even have passed high school in order to understand
and master the required skills.

27. SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPACT 3
9. He will either then start earning a salary or
become a person that either farms or
fabricates something from the produce.
10. Once the person completes his 6 month
training period, he would be able to study any
basic apprenticeship course for free, online
and in practice. Once he completes the
course, he can decide to go and apply his skills
in another place or city and earn a living that
way.
11. The next person will then be able to take up his
home and place in the program, and so forth.

28. NOTES
 Sufficient open areas must be left untouched in order to provide access
for the migrating animals of the desert. Ample water points can be
provided for the animals away from the settlements.
 Some of the newly created farmland could also support livestock.
 This project can be further expanded to outside the sandy desert areas
by utilizing only the sea water transportation- and the water purification
system. Thereby providing drinkable water to farms mostly close to the
sea.
 The plastic molded floor panels could also be used to store organic
waste, whereby the methane gases released during decomposition can
be harvested and be used as an energy source.
 There are also a number of salt-tolerant plants that can grow with sea
water, such as Salicornia and vegetables. Thus some of the sea water
does not even have to go through the whole purification stage, it can
be used on some farms close to it’s natural state.

29. FUNDING
Funding will be needed to get such a project off the ground,
especially for research on all the new concepts (the project
should be economically self supportive once fully
incorporated):
 A plastic bottle manufacturing company such as Coca-
Cola could be approached to get involved on the project
and thereby show their support for a symbiotic process.
 The government will benefit the most from this project,
since the program will reduce the amount of “RDP” type of
homes that need to be constructed, as well as reducing
the burden on the economy from the workless community.
Thus the government could sponsor a huge part of the
funding.
 Greenpeace (?)
 WWF – the provided water points could revitalize the
number of wild animals in the desert.

30. CONCLUSION
If this undertaking proves feasible and
executable, then it will provide so much
opportunities for resolving poverty, land
overcrowding and a chance for so many to
stand up again.