During the FDR regime, the FedGov had a couple fo make work/workfare programs - the WPA (We Piddle Around) and the CCC - civilian conservation Corps. In the desert outside of Tucson, in the dry and some would say barren, desert of the Tucson Mountains, the CCC came and left. creosote bush, mostly. the odd Palo Verde tree. And a lot of hard crust dirt. The CC built a series of swales, a berm across the natural water path to slow the flow and hold water after the rains left. 80 Years on, one of those swales looks like this By doing nothing more than placing a structure and leaving, they terraformed part of the desert. Here is a YT that looks at three of the swales and how they changed the landscape. https://permaculturenews.org/images/Swale-System-near-Tucson-Arizona.jpg
Here are a couple of other (positive) human terraforming stories (terraforming in India) ponds for water recharge. A story of how one man made a big change
you can do the same thing with trees and bushes to an extent - the early Jewish immigrants into Palestine started greening up the desert thru proper cultivation - there's still a nice bounty on tree growing ...
As much as I bash China for pollution and other eco-crimes - I have to give them credit for their reforestation efforts. (start at 4.20) While very much Chicom propaganda, the linked video does show the results of tree planting. A bit self-serving of the producer/photographer, it does show permaaculture can be successful. It also shows what a disaster overgrazing is to delicate ecosystems. Lots of before/after photos of the positive effects of tree planting.
Speaking of Terraforming... There is a grass used for erosion control that has pretty neat qualities - extremely long roots (up to a 5 meters in length) and will not self-propagate - which mean it stay where placed. Vetiver grass.AKA Chrysopogon zizanioides, formerly known as Vetiveria zizanioides. Vetiver – A Valuable Grass for Erosion Control | Oahu Resource Conservation and Development Council (use in HI) and can be used to, oddly, save reefs - Vetiver Grass for the Pacific Islands has articles on erosion control = healthy reefs A grass of many uses (don't worry, no narrative and you can stop the vid to look up any words your Spanglish doesn't have) SHows uses as a living hedge, water/erosion control and use of the cuttings.
I’ll be flying down to Tucson (this Oct) to watch my little sister graduate from college. My brother and I will be going out to the swales to get some drone footage to use with geodetic photogrammetry software...it will generate a 3 D image with measurements from a single known reference Should be a good fun project for us. I’ll post up some images on return..
walking up on the main swale thru the flat desert North East end of the structure. The slope is obvious from this angle The stick is 170 Cm long and is held starting at 215 Cm above ground (top of stick is just over 16.5 ft above local ground) barrel cactus just below (downstream) from main structure. Stick is 170 long - note how 'fat' the cactus is, full of moisture.
standing not quite at bottom of 'inside' of the main swale structure. I didn't have snake gaiters to wear, so no walking around in the grass this trip.. meadow inside / above the main structure. About 3+ acres. Note the grass is green - despite no rain since Aug,.... 9.8 inches so far this year. another example of a fat cactus below the main structure. Behind me is one of the smaller 'bar' type swales. It's about 1.5 miles (or a bit more) from the road to the main swale.
overhead of meadow overhead of swale, looking ESE Trying to sort out how to post video to Utube for everyone to look at
