Growing the necessary wind breaks and soil retaining plants can be impossible during droughts due to lack of water plants need. The XDOBS Air to Water harvesting technology can be an essential component of an integrated plan by providing the water necessary to keep the soil protection plants alive.
The Desertification process normally triggered by a drought or
lack of moisture which results in vegetation die off at the edge of the desert
zone thereby allowing moisture retained in the ground. As
the valuable top soil looses moisture it becomes more susceptible to wind and
water erosion.
The definition of desertification adopted by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in 1992 is land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors including climatic variations and human activities. This definition cites climate variation as a direct causal factor and it implicitly links climate change and the assessment of the extent of desertification.
The
more common understanding of desertification is the gradual deterioration of
land which once had a healthy cover of plant growth into one where most plants
of died and there is nothing left other than dirt and sand that can be easily
blown or washed away.
One of the most effective ways to combat desertification is to supply a sufficient amount of water to support drought tolerant grasses and other plants so that they can survive until the end of the drought. As long as the plants remain alive their roots and associated moisture help to minimize loss of the top soil due to wind erosion.
The problem is that during severe droughts there is no surface water available and using ground water unsustainable due to lack of recharge. As a result there is insufficient water to start the drought tolerant grasses. Many times less hardy crops are grown in areas where the drought hits and these crops are some of the first to die and since the drought is already in full swing the
The XDOBS Air to water harvester (A2WH.COM) can slow or reverse Desertification by using our patent pending process to obtain the water needed to water a set of plants and drought tolerant grass which replace the standard crops that can not hold the soil during the extended drought. A2WH extracts the humidity form existing air and harvests it as liquid water which is used to water these necessary plants and help them get started.
One of the most effective ways of using A2WH is to start and sustain a set of windbreaks around each of the fields. It would be even better to have a drought tolerant ground cover over the entire field.
A2WH uses solar thermal energy to power the water extraction process along with a patent pending XDOBS technology. In combination these allow us to dramatically reduce the cost per gallon for water produced from Air as compared to historical approaches.
The use of Solar Thermal power allows A2WH to be deployed in remote areas where there is no power grid available which is important because these are some of the areas that have traditionally been the hardest to treat.
The XDOBS A2WH can be a critical component in reducing land at risk from Desertification. In addition the preventing Desertification A2WH can help reclaim desert land for sustainable agriculture even when there is no surface or ground water available to water the plants. By increasing a agriculture zone around the Desertification risk zone it minimizes the incursion of the desert zones. By maintaining a series of healthly wind screens which can be watered by the Air to Water Harvest (A2WH) units we can dramatically lower the erosion and heat wind damage on associated fields. There are some projects that have accomplished this with only drought tolerant plants but this can be difficult during severer drought where the A2WH units can make it faster and increase probability of success.
“Drought tolerant edible perennial plants were chosen, as they would fulfill several goals these farmers have. There were reports saying that a lot of useful drought tolerant species existed, and that many of them were little researched and underexploited. The species should be natural, not hybrids nor superspecies, but with great genetic variety for their resistance and the farmers should be able to reproduce seeds themselves.” “Farmers were convinced that Moussa got his bumper crop because the vegetation of the field station protected his field. From then on many farmers became friends of trees instead of enemies, as one farmer put it. The first farmers had viewed the plants as something exotic and had sowed them in their gardens, but now they began to see the plants as beneficial for reducing the strong winds in the fields that adversely affected the millet plants.”
As the article “Combating Desertification with plants” points out combining the concept of edible plants with windscreen and soil holding plants can dramatically improve the success of any anti Desertification program however the XDOBS A2WH units combined with this can multiple the effectiveness of the program.
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This discussion contains forward looking statements which are based on current expectations and differences can be expected. All statements and expressions are the opinion of management of XDOBS and are not meant to be either investment advice or a solicitation or recommendation to buy, sell, or hold securities. Many of these statements are based on sound economic reasoning, however actual response of the economy is heavily influenced by politics and large business and so the outcome could end up substantially different.